Sea World….two weeks ago
I wish I could say that I have a good excuse for not updating the blog sooner, but I don’t. It’s sort of summer around here. We are sort of doing school while I scramble to finish planning for the new year and catch up with things around the house all the while taking working around the seemingly endless little things that crop up. Vacation Bible School, a trip to Seaworld, another homeschooling convention….there’s always something.
Two weekends ago we packed up the children for an family style camping trip. Camping at our house is a little bit different than the camping I grew up with. I grew up camping with an actual tent with facilities that required bringing one’s own toilet paper. However, I married a man whose idea of nature is the view of the beach from the hotel window and “roughing it” means a hotel without room service. For our camping trip to San Antonio we stayed in “rustic” facilities…..not quite roughing it because there was room service but it stopped at midnight. Now some people might think that a Hyatt with on-site spa facilities wouldn’t be rustic but we all have our own little definitions now don’t we?
We had dinner along San Antonio’s riverwalk just to say we had done that. Upon paying, the waiter neglected to return our credit card and we didn’t notice until we got to the campground…er…hotel. The restaurant claimed they didn’t have the credit card and so we got to cancel the card. Lovely. By the next morning, I had a raging migraine and Stan had a “plan” for the day. Not a good combination. I’ll spare you the details but suffice it to say that my eldest son got a rather pointed lecture about not becoming cannon fodder by stepping into that which was none of his business. 
The orcas were having a bad day too. What do you do with a whole pod of orcas comes down with an attitude problem at showtime? Give the audience a lecture on the behavior of orcas and encourage them to come back sometime when the orcas feel like playing. LOL I knew just how they felt. We also fed dolphins and seals and rode on the roller coasters. My youngest is now 48 inches and could (and did) ride everything except the Great White hanging roller coaster although that is certainly in that little adrenaline junkie’s future. When we finally got to eat lunch (at about 5 pm….mutter sputter) I opted that for the health and safety of the rest of the family, I would remain in the tent…er…room….while everyone else went back to the park for the evening shows. My middle child opted to stay behind with me and make S’mores around the campfire. (That one is really true btw) I stayed in bed and nursed my head.
The next day with a migraine-free head was much better. The highlight of the day though was a return to the dolphin and beluga whale show that we had seen the previous day, Viva!. The shows combines acrobats, whales, and dolphins and is quite inventive and fun. There is also a very creative pre-show involving a dancer/pantomine who pretends to be a minicipal employee trying to stop a leak from the city’s waterworks. The “Waterworks” are really fountains and the antics are quite hysterical. The dancer uses all sorts of props (pans, platters, colanders, etc.) to “stop” the various leaks which invariably end up spraying the surrounding audience (a not unwelcome thing in 95 degree Texas heat). At one point the performer attempts to stop a “leak” with his hat but on looking at his hat decides he loves it too much to get it wet. So he grabs the hat of an “unsuspecting” audience member and uses that hat instead; then, on filling the hat with water, returns it to the audience member’s head. Well Chris had seen this the dat before and decided he wanted to be that audience member. We got there early, seated ourselves in what we knew would be a dry area and Chris went down and sat himself in the right area. Sure enough, a Seaworld employee came by before the show and set up the gag. Chris was THRILLED (and not just because he was rewarded with a camera afterwords). He claims that he just wanted the camera, but don’t let him fool you. He was grinning from ear to ear for the rest of the day. In spite of the fact that I really needed to be home doing school planning, it was a pretty fun weekend.
