Sea World and Day 4 at Disneyland

We took a short break from Disneyland and went to Sea World. I have not been to Sea World since I was little and I was really looking forward to it. Makayla is a lot braver than me and dared to touch the fish. I tried... but it was too gross for me. 

 The kids got to feed the seals.

 We watched the dolphin show. Good thing Tyler has a greasy head so his brochure can double as a sun visor.

 The dolphin show was super cute and maybe one of my favorite parts of Sea World. Earlier in the day we were even able to see them feed the dolphins and got to pet them.

 How cool is Caden in front of these awesome turtles?

 Brynnli was hilarious on this trip. She had finally figured out the potty training thing and was ready to be done with diapers, but I was not about to potty train her on vacation. So every day about the same time, Brynnli would say to us, "I need to go poo-poo" and we would tell her to go in a corner. She would say, "okay, Mommy" and go in the corner to do her business. After she was done she would come over to say, "Mommy, I all done going poopies!"

 We got to see the beluga whale, and I taught all the kids to sing the baby beluga song.

 I was super excited to see the whale show, even knowing they had changed the show because of all the controversy over the whale killing the trainer a few years ago. We knew going into it the show would be more educational than entertaining, but I was still excited. It was fun to see the how big the whales were, but the show ended up being not as exciting as I was hoping, and probably my least favorite part of Sea World.

 But these two boys right here can just melt your heart.

 Standing in front of the flamingos pretending to be flamingos.

 We went on the sky ride and a few other rides they had there.

And ended the night at the seal show.

As we left, the kids all got to pick out a souvenir. Makayla picked out a ceramic turtle and a mermaid/penguin who she named "Merflake". Caden picked out a stuffed Orca whale that he named "Blackie" He said that Blackie could be friends with Bulie (his dolphin souvenir from Grandma and Grandpa's last trip to SW). Caden said he would be like the trainers and teach Blackie and Bluie to do tricks. And Brynnie picked out a mermaid. When we asked Brynn what her mermaid's name was she told us, "Alina Evans". After a while we figured out she named the mermaid after her middle name. When Brynn tries to say "Linnea" it always sounds like "Alina". How cute are our kids? 

Overall, we really enjoyed SeaWorld, but the place was so dead it was almost spooky. I heard SeaWorld was struggling, and I wonder if this will be the last time our kids will ever go there. 

We ate dinner at a place right across from the San Diego temple. This picture does not do it justice because it looked so pretty all lit up in the darkness. 

Just when you thought we were done in DisneyLand, we went back for one more bonus day of fun. We had been on every single ride and met all of the necessary characters, so we just really enjoyed the day and figured everything we did that day was a bonus. We were expecting the day to be super crowded and busy because it was the first day of the Christmas season. 

We met Gaston. He refused to sign our books because in his opinion, books are useless. 

He did a show for all the people and Makayla ended up getting picked to help out. She had to hold her best muscle pose.

 We met Aladin. We were hoping Jasmine would be with him, but not this time.

One of the things we were most excited about our bonus day was that we would get to see the parade since it was running on weekends. Grandma and Grandpa are the best because they ended up saving us the best seats. The kids even got to write postcards to Santa.

The parade is always one of my favorite parts because I love watching the kids' reaction to all the characters. The parade did not disappoint. It was fun to see the characters celebrating Christmas. 

After the parade we split up. Caden wanted to meet Thor and Makayla wanted to stay in Disneyland to ride more rides. Another bonus this day was that Makayla's and my favorite ride, Indiana Jones, was open again, so Makayla and Grandpa went on that ride. 

While waiting for Thor we shared an ice cream. Shhhh... don't tell Makayla. 

Brynn was surprisingly afraid of Thor. Caden is the best big brother and reassured her that she would be ok. Thor took Brynn's hand and they walked over together.  

Turns out Brynn was afraid of Thor's brother Loki. Thor took control of the situation and cover up Loki so Brynn didn't have to look at him. 

We spend the rest of the day going on all of our favorite rides. Brynnli's least favorite ride this trip was the "horman house" aka, the Haunted House. Even weeks after the trip she keeps telling us that she wants to go to Disneyland, "but not on dat scary ride... it scares me". As the day went on, the park became more and more crowded. It was so crowded that most rides were 90 minute waits and you couldn't even move. At that point we were on day 5 of theme parks and we were getting worn out. We decided to head back to the hotel early, eat pizza, go swimming, and watch the fireworks from the roof top again. 

 So with one last goodbye, we left Disneyland.

As a side note, how cute is Brynnli drinking her bottle with her souvenirs?