Sea World Surprise

Our oldest son graduated preschool last Tuesday.   What a wonderful experience to see how much he has grown.  He has accomplished so much over this last year. It went by so fast, I feel like he's become a big kid overnight.
On our way to the ceremony our neighbor, Mr. Bill (who I've mentioned in another story here), stopped by to congratulate him.   The exchange of words almost broke my heart it was so sweet.  After some 'wows', 'thank yous' and 'my how big you've gotten', Ryder looks up and says, "And my mom is so proud of me."  I melted.  You can imagine the emotions that ran through me knowing he knows how I feel.  It was a moment all parents relish in.
The graduation production was great.   He received a medal for his knowledge of dinosaurs, "most likely to become a paleontologist."   So smart.  I really have an amazing boy.  A special feature was the whole group singing songs that they had been practicing as a surprise for the parents.  Also, very sweet.
Afterwards the 4 of us, Aunt Cindy, Devin and MomMom went to a celebratory dinner.  Ryder got a some graduation gifts.  One of which was a surprise to both he and I...
A trip to Sea World!!!
Yes!
We visited the park last November while I was pregnant and it was amazing.  Ever since we have been talking about going back.  We think it's a great place to take a baby, because there are so many shows.  Between that and the many aquariums we would be able enjoy it together instead of waiting or taking turns while the other takes Ryder on the  attractions.  Not to mention, Ryder's knowledge of sea creatures is fantastic.  He knows the names of fish I have never heard of.  He's quite enthusiastic to learn more, so, of course, we want to encourage it.

If you live in Florida I would recommend getting the Fun Card.  Basically you pay for a day and can come back all year.  We got one of these and one year pass.  The year pass is about $30 more but you get free parking and 10% of food and merchandise.   If you only use them twice it's worth it.  They offered a free year pass for preschoolers in the beginning of the year, which I had printed up just in case something like this came up.  Bonus.
The Hubs had set it up so we were staying in a hotel Thursday and Friday night,with plans to go to the park on Friday.  We ended up getting to our room around 1 on Thursday.  Since we had the passes we decided to do a dry run to the park.  The hotel offered a shuttle so I wanted to be sure with the bags, the stroller and all the other goodies that come with a baby that we were prepared.  The ride was smooth and so was our entrance to the park.
We hit the Dolphin Show first.  These animals are so magnificent.  I get goose bumps and teary eyed every time I see this show.  It is incredible.  You can't help but smile.

I was up top for this one.  They have a special area for sleeping babies if you don't want to wake them up and take them out of the stroller.  Extra Bonus.
The highlight of the trip for me was feeding these spectacular mammals.  I feel like you can see how smart they are by just looking at their eyes.  They are so fast, yet so graceful in the water.  I just love them.

$7 extra per person.  So totally worth it, we did it again the next day! 


The highlight for the Hubs was feeding the sting rays.  They are in a tank were you can pet them and they come up to the side if you have food or not.  But, after feeding the dolphins the interaction was too hard for the boys to resist.

Ryder had a lot of favorites.  On his list along with feeding the dolphins and sting rays was Shamu's Happy Harbor.  They have a huge rope/slide/play/obstacle/climbing area that is probably 3 stories high.  Like a pumped up fast food playground, all kids love it.  Add a splash zone, carousel, mini roller coaster, and several other kid friendly rides and what child could resist.

 He also loved Turtle Trek, which is a new attraction.  You follow the journey of life with a sea turtle in a 3-D dome.  It was very entertaining for all of us, even the baby.  Although he did not wear the glasses, he was so alert, really taking in all the images and sounds.  On the way out there is an interactive video game and a view of the live turtles and manatees you saw while waiting for the show underneath.  More reasons to love it.
 
Besides offering a shuttle, another awesome perk of our hotel was that was got a quick queue card with out stay.  The quick queue is Sea World's version of the fast past that is offered at Disney.  Although, in my opinion,  Sea World's is better because you get one card to use for the whole day on all rides applicable at any time.   I'm so glad we decided to get them even though we weren't sure if we would use them.  After walking under Manta a couple of times, the Hubs wanted to check it out.  The baby was sleeping and Ryder was entertained with a stuffed sting ray he won so it was perfect timing.  He headed up the quick queue line and discovered that they also have a single rider line.  Which basically means no line.  He came out so fast, ranting and raving about how awesome it was.  Obviously, I headed right in.  Another girl was walking up with me and I guess the guy thought we were together so we got to ride in the same row.  Whether you are two or more you should always check out this line, you may get to ride together anyway. I feel like this is a huge secret that no one knows about.  The Manta is such a system overload that you aren't talking or even looking at the person next to you anyway.  No line. What an amazing discovery, right?!
Although, I'm not sure I can really give a more accurate review of the actual ride.  System overload is my best description.  When you get in you are sitting like a normal roller coaster.  By the time you realize your legs are pinned, the floor drops out and the whole coaster is tilting until you are laying face down at the ground.
Laying.
Face down.
Staring at the ground.
Totally freaking out on the inside, trying to look cool on the outside.  Once that baby starts down the first drop, Boom, system overload.  The G-forces are indescribable.  You can't help but scream/yell.  It's a mixture of excitement and fear so intense that I hope I can bring myself to ride it again.

So as you can see the trip was a huge success!
What a great surprise for all of us.
And this is a short list of all there is to do.  
Oh, and if you are curious what Tyce did most of the time....

But he was sure to flash his happy baby smiles at everyone and anyone who would accept them.  He was quite the entertainer in the few lines we did have to wait in.  I wish I could capture more of them on video, but lately every time I aim the camera at him I get a look like this...

But don't worry, I'll keep trying.  The Meat is hilarious when he really gets his arms and legs pumping while giving belly laughs.

So, Congrats again to our Grad!  We love you so much and couldn't be more proud!  You definitely earned your trip to Sea World and the many more to come!

Update:  I have not seen the movie Blackfish and these trips to SeaWorld were well before it came out.  But I am an animal lover and felt obligated to comment.  I don't plan on watching because I know it will be horrible.  And for the record we have not been back to the park or renewed our passes. Just hearing about it was impact enough for us.  The reason I loved SeaWorld was because I felt like it was such a huge educational experience for the kids.  The shows are great, but Ryder got much more out of the aquariums.  He loved walking though ALL of them and reading up on the creatures.  He loves anything to do with the ocean and is constantly giving us fun facts about different marine life.  They did a wonderful job with constantly talking about recycling and educating families on the effects that litter has on our oceans.  Did you know that sea turtles eat jellyfish?  A discarded plastic grocery back looks just like a jellyfish when floating in the ocean.  It kills the already endangered innocent turtle looking for a meal.  All improperly disposed trash eventually makes it to the ocean, even if you live in Kansas.  We learned that and other great information watching the 3-D movie Turtle Trek.  They also have a manatee rehabilitation center.  This is huge in Florida because manatees are such slow moving creatures that they often get hit by boats.  There are many of these centers scattered throughout our state.  Many people would never know that because they don't visit our local Wildlife refugee park, they go to SeaWorld.  I always felt that even if a fraction of the people at the park on any given day absorbed one of the positive conservation messages or started recycling when they went home that was HUGE.  Getting such an important message to such a large scale of people should not have to be at the expense of such magnificent creatures. 

Just an update....

The Blueberry Festival was this past weekend.
We went everyday!
Like I mentioned before there isn't usually to much happening in our small town, so we really made the best of it.


Friday night there was a parade and then some music and food trucks downtown. 

The infamous Taco Bus. 

People talk about the Taco Bus ALL THE TIME.  We figured we would wait until Saturday to get some.
This was a dumb idea.
No Taco Bus on Saturday.  Duh, it was Cinco de Mayo, why would the Taco Bus be at the Blueberry Festival??  Lesson learned: See Taco Bus, Get food from Taco Bus.


Saturday the festivities started at 10 am.  We met up with some friends and went to check out some of the fun.

This picture of the kids makes me wanna sing, "Hey, Hey we're the Monkeys.."

It was great!  They had about 10 square blocks barricaded off.  The streets were filled with plenty of carnival food and lots of vendors.  There was a kids area with face painting and some other usual suspects.  They had small stages set up every where, just about every block you turned on there was music.  Also very cool,  they had an open container policy for the weekend, which meant we could have a cold beer while we walked around.   We catered to the children, so we spent a lot of time sitting in the shade listening to whatever music drifted our way, while the kids ran around in the grass.  All and all a great time.

Sunday the Hubs and I went back with our family.  As it turned out our 4 year old wanted to stay and play at his cousin's for a bit.  They have a property right off Main St. so we left him behind and headed up with just the stroller.  The baby was a dream and slept the whole time.  We were able to really enjoy ourselves and check out everything without interruption.  We got to watch the street performers, eat blueberry shortcake and even make a few purchases.

My favorite purchase would have to be the honey!

That's right!  Blueberry Honey!
So delicious and super good for you, especially when it's local. This one came from a couple towns over.
Yay!  



It was a great weekend for us and a great weekend for the town.







The baby was an angel.  He did great.  He's mostly a happy baby, but ya never know how they are gonna act when taken out of their element.   But this is what we got to deal with...

...and when he wasn't smiling, he was eating or sleeping.  Perfect!
And not to leave out his older brother, we got several compliments on how good his manners were and how sweet he was.  Makes you feel good that all your hard work pays off.  Especially when they choose to preform well in public, because Lord knows they are not always on their best behavior at home. 

This makes me even more excited for our upcoming camping trip.  It will be the baby's 1st music festival!  Our older son started going when he was 9 months old and he loves them. I'm really pumped that they can share the experience.  Even at such a young age the baby really identifies with his big brother.  He smiles every time he sees him.  And the feeling is totally mutual.  Big brother loves to talk to him and get him laughing.  It's so special to see.


On a side note:
I finally caved and got a new phone.  It's smart.  ;)  And it has a cool camera, which all these pictures were taken with.   It's pretty amazing what technology can do...I didn't even have to plug my phone into anything to upload the pictures.  Just accessed everything through the web.  Wild.  Who would have thought we would have come so far so fast?  Instead of telling our kids, "I walked up hill, both ways, in the snow."  We'll say, "All the phones had wires, hooked into the wall and some even required quarters to make a call."

The county fair

I grew up in New Orleans.  Well, technically Jefferson Parish, but the greater New Orleans area just the same.  Houses are close, there are a lot of people and there is ALWAYS something to do.  Your typical big city with an added bonus of awesome food,  drink and festivals.  The 'Big Easy' as my four year old likes to call it. 

Now, we live in the country in Florida.  I guess you could get even more country than this, as we don't live on a farm or own many acres of land, but that is what we are surrounded by.  The houses are not close and there are not a lot of people.  Your typical rural area.

There is not always something to do around here unless you want to travel about an hour to the closest metropolitan area. 

As you can imagine that makes the County Fair a big deal.

Everyone goes.

While not nearly as big as the Florida State Fair they do have your choice fair attractions, Ferris Wheel, carousel, gravitron and one of my favs the swings.

What they also have, which I find so amusing, is livestock.

I realize this is normal for 'fair games' , but for a girl who is used to city fairs, this is totally new to me.

Our fairs were held in the parking lots and open fields of the high schools and elementary schools in the area.  The only animals we saw were goldfish in little round bowls waiting for a ping-pong ball to decide their destiny.

Not here.....here they have it all...

From prize turkeys...

















to your average fair pig.



 I mean, I'm just waiting for a little girl named Fern to come out with buttermilk.  (funny enough this pig was about to get a bath.)

 Cows, chickens, hens, bunnies and ducks are some of the other animals that were on display.   I gathered that it is a combination of local 4H clubs and farmers that enter their animals.  I didn't dig deep enough to find out what the winners get, but there were definitely blue ribbons on some of the cages. 

We had a good time, especially our 4 year old, he got an armband that allowed him unlimited access to all the rides.   What could be better for kid that age?

The baby also did great.  He's getting close to three months, so this was a big outing for him.  Lots of lights, lots of noise, just a lot all around for a little guy to take in.  And that's pretty much what he did, just took it all in.

Stinkin' cute, I know.  

The smiles from our boys are definitely the highlight of the fair for the Hubs and I.  But a close second is the prime people watching.   If you have been to any fair anywhere, you are picking up what I am putting down.   The 80's may be making a comeback with the teens, but there were some mom jeans and mullets saying the 80's never left.  Classic fair attire, classic.   Next time I'll try and snap a few shots, instead of just mouthing 'Wow' to the Hubs. 

Good times.  Good times. 

Over all the fair was a hit.  I don't know why our town doesn't have more festivals to get the folks out and socializing?   Although, next month they are hosting the 1st Annual Blueberry Festival.  Should be a fun day.  Blueberries are delish, I'm just hoping for some good music, good people and good food to go along with them.