Here fishy, fishy.....or whaley, whaley

With Monday being a school holiday, we headed off for a glorious day at Sea World! We just LOVE that place. Thankfully my boys are crazy about animals like I have always been and they thirst for knowledge - let Matthew find a museum docent or a trainer/guide at the animals parks and LOOK OUT....better be ready, buddy, for questions galore!

I wasn't sure about the weather since there was supposed to be a squall line coming through but my hubby felt confindent we'd do fine. I agreed - I figured even if we only got to see one or two things and had to pack it in for rain, we could find something else to do. But God was good and kept his umbrella over us. The only rain we had was while we were eating lunch under the covered patio of a restaurant and it was done before we were done eating! We didn't even get wet from Shamu! And believe me, the person sitting right next to Matthew got drenched! Thank you God!

We did a behind-the-scenes tour of the predators and that was pretty cool. We got to go back behind Shamu stadium and see exciting sights like a.) where the trainers eat when they aren't performing (ooooh) b.)where they load up the buckets of fish to feed the whales (ahhhh) c.) the back of the lighting & sound equipment (wooooow) d.) but we did get to be super close(about 10 feet) to Shamu(is it Shami when it's plural?! LOL) -well two of the Shamus- and that was pretty groovy. I can tell you it is pretty darn eerie how smart they are. One Shamu swam back and forth and then just stopped, lifted his head up out of the water at an angle so his eye could get a good look and just stared at us. Then after about a minute he went back under and went to the other end of our group (about 10 people) and looked at them. We learned a lot about killer whales and that only reinforced how damn intelligent they are.








We also got to see behind-the-scenes at the Shark exhibit. Some of it was equally riveting like the filtration system and looking down over the top of the tank that the clear tube which people walk through is in. But it was pretty neat that Matthew got to touch (& me too) a juvenile shark and we learned all about how they feed the sharks and perform medical check-ups. No pics of Matthew petting the shark though - Don wasn't very savvy with the camera and those are blurry but I do have a shot of Matthew with his wet sleeves from "dipping" them in the tank!






The high point of the day for Patrick was petting a "Ho" (or "Hor" depending on the day) - it was actually a horse, Kelly the Clydesdale and Patrick was a happy camper.
We saw practically everything and had a really good day. Stayed out a little later than we wanted but that's what happens on a day off!