52 Degree Water Is Cold

The Night Shows. OK, so we're at Sea World on Friday night. Left just as soon as everyone got home, drove straight to Sea World, and went straight to the ski show. Not being water people, I think that may have been the first time my girls had ever see anyone water ski. Pretty cool stuff. But the whole purpose of the Friday night adventure was to see Shamu Rocks. We get to Shamu Stadium early, and the kids want to set in the Soak Zone. I told them to get us some seats, and I helped get Emma and Stacy settled well above the water table. I get down to the kids and they are on the fourth row. Oh, boy. At first, the girls were just giddy, but then it changed to, "Why isn't Mommy down here?...Are we mean making her sit up there by herself?...Should we go up there and sit with her?. . . . . . . . . . . . Just how wet are we going to get?" So the show finally starts, and I must say, it was mighty impressive sitting down that low and being able to see as much of what was under the water as was on top. Impressive. And you can only see that well at night when the water is lit. Anyway, the whales do their tale-splash thing two or three times--on the other side of the stadium. They kept coming toward us and coming toward us and stopping just before they would get to us. Shelby is whining about it, but I'm thinking, This is going to be OK. And so we're watching the show progress and all of the sudden we see one of the whales (underwater) right in front of hurling toward the surface...up into the air...back down again onto its back.... Holy Cow! There must have been twenty gallons of 52 degree saltwater that landed on me alone. Then the whale comes back doing the stand-on-its-nose-tale-flogging right onto us as opposed to the little side-flip thing they sometimes do. Did I mention right on us? I really believe that if you went five people over in either direction that everyone was bone dry on our side of the stadium. It was like I had a big target on me. I knew I shouldn't have worn a red shirt. Made the thing mad, that's what I did. No, wait, that's bulls, isn't it?

The Hotel. Before we left, Kaitlyn asked me where we were staying. I told her I didn't know, but she had better be glad her Mommy did the picking instead of me, because I would have had all of us sleeping in two double beds in the MicroTel. (You know better, don't you Renee?) No, with four kids, I've adopted the policy that more is better. Anyway, we're in a two bedroom suite, ground floor, first room on the left from the lobby. (If any of you would like Stacy's assistance in booking rooms, her number is 548-8952.) As we are packing up on Saturday morning, I looked at the desk in the room where the girls slept. On the desk on the notepad, one of my little angels had written, "Kitchen needs a little help." I don't know which one it was (I suspect Shelby), and I don't know what needed help (I suspect that there was no food in it), but I thought it was hilarious. Other than that, great stay. We all had a peaceful night of uneventful slumber.

Souvenir Time. This trip we decided to finally purchase some mementos of our journey. Emma had gotten a small stuffed "doll-pin" on the last trip. Didn't want anything to do with Shamu. This time, she latched onto one, hugged it, kissed it on the nose, and kept saying over and over, "My baby doll-pin. My baby doll-pin." Shelby wanted (and got) a shark-tooth necklace. Kaitlyn wanted (and got) a stuffed manatee. Benjamin wanted (and got) ice cream. Go figure. Anyway, on the way home, I commented to Stacy that they all got souvenirs except for me, but I still had the best of all: lots of smiles and hugs.