Sea World with the Fords

How much do I love the Fords? Jenny called me last week and mentioned that she had a four day weekend and what did I want to do? I said I was wanting to go to Sea World. She said, "Me, too" and thus the plan to do Sea World with FOUR adults and two children was born.

Both Sydney and Jack loved the dolphins this visit. It was hard to get Sydney to move on to the next good thing. In fact, that was sort of the theme for the day for her -- everything was so wonderful and exciting that she didn't want to do anything else. (Notice, two adults keeping children from swimming with dolphins, one Jenny Ford taking pictures.)

She loved the fish at the Coral Reef exhibit and the sharks. Oddly, her favorite thing, though, was the lobster. I think this is odd because, come on? A lobster? But she thought it was amazing and kept talking about it all day. (I didn't actually see this lobster. I was with Jack and Jenny and Paul, but Jeremy took this picture and told me all about it.)

The next awesome thing was the roller coaster, Sydney's first one. She loved, loved, loved it. In fact, she and Jeremy rode it three times before we convinced her to move on. (Jenny took this picture while I waved at Sydney and Paul walked a sleepy Jack around the area in his stroller.)

After the roller coaster (or more accurately, between ride one and ride two), the Fords went and saw Shamu, Jack napped, and Jeremy and Sydney found this play structure.

We then reconnoitered (a word I always associate with Paul Ford and my other boy scout friend, Andrew) and saw penguins and then had lunch. By then it was getting hot and we were ready for the water park.

Up until this point (with the exception of the roller coaster), I think I could have done this by myself with the kids. I could have done the dolphins, letting the kids take turns, the aquarium would have been fine, but Sydney would have had to stay with me and Jack and probably missed the lobster. The penguins would have been easy. But the water park would have been nearly impossible with only one adult.

We established ourselves a base camp at the shallow pool where Paul found a shady spot, swore he didn't want to go in the water (Jeremy, Jenny and I all in turn asked "are you sure?" and he was). Had Jeremy actually believed him, we could have saved ourselves a $5 locker rental, but really, it never crossed our minds that anyone wouldn't want to be in this.

Anyway, Paul stayed and Jeremy, Jenny, Jack and I went to the lazy river. I rode an inner tube with Jack, Jenny rode with Sydney and Jeremy helped out with both kids as needed and I really think all three adults were needed there. After a while, Sydney wanted to go back to the shallow pool, so Jenny and Sydney went back and Jeremy stayed with me until Jack fell asleep.

After letting Sydney play and letting Jack get his nap out, we got dried off and changed and went back to our two favorite parts: the dolphins and the coral reef.

Sydney did so well today. Yes, she was cranky at times and yes, she had a full on melt down in the gift shop, but really, she's three and it was a long, long day. And she did get to have some small ocean creatures to take home after she solved her meltdown problem and that made her very happy. (So happy that when I went to take her picture, she would not put them down.)

But mostly, the moral of this tale (in case you didn't catch on) was, if you want to take two small children to an amusement park, bring your awesome couple friends who don't have kids yet themselves but still think your kids are neat.

It changed the day from something that would have been completely doable, if exhausting, to a day that felt like a vacation for the kids and the parents.

Yay, Fords!