Sea World Birthday!

Instead of throwing a birthday party for the girls this year, we took a mini-vacation to San Antonio to visit Sea World. The Morris and the Dusek families were able to join us, which made the weekend infinitely better for for all of the Oberts! We all had an amazing time.

The weather was a little dreary and drizzly on Saturday morning, so we had to make a quick trip to Target for rain jackets, which served us well throughout the weekend. The drizzle curled Izzy's hair up like corkscrews. (They're peering at the playful otters.)

We fed the seals and sea lions, who barked loud thank you's to the girls.

Izzy spent most of the time in the park atop Dan's shoulders. She loved it, despite a slight mishap with a shorter-than-anticipated doorway. Oops!

Feeding the dolphins was one of our favorite activities... Izzy wasn't quite brave enough to reach out to touch them, but she dropped the fish right into their mouths this time. We discovered that there is a lower area that allows the kids to get right up to the water's edge, which was awesome for them!

The weekend again demonstrated for us that we need to help the girls develop better social skills with other kids... poor Luke tried and tried to get Abby to answer his question, but she just stared off into the distance until the adults intervened. Poor Luke!

Sea World opened up a Sesame Street Bay of Play tailored for little kids... the toddlers had a ball, but the moms had some panicky moments when the kids climbed high and out of sight, and Dan wasn't entirely thrilled when he followed them through a strap-tunnel 50 feet above the ground... overall, very fun!

The girls used their birthday money to pick out a special toy from the gift store. Izzy chose a snuggly dolphin, and Abby chose a shark. She opens his mouth really wide and says, "AHHH!" Very interesting, this difference in personalities...

We ended our day with a special hug from Azul, Sea World's Beluga mascot. Izzy wasn't quite brave enough to hug him, but Abby went back for a second hug.

We chose a hotel with an indoor/outdoor pool and spent about an hour on Friday and Saturday evenings letting the girls show off their swimming skills... they're doing really well! We don't anticipate that they'll be completely independent anytime soon, but they're definitely able to kick their heads to the surface, and they know to reach for the wall (or parent). It was a lot of fun to actually get into the water with them... made us pretty anxious for summer to really get here!

On Sunday, we ate lunch with the Orcas! We planned on a Dine with Shamu experience about a month ago; then on Saturday, we watched the three main shows (sea lions, beluga/dolphins, and orcas)... the orcas captured the girls hearts completely. They had huge smiles plastered on their faces after every jump, and when the orcas twirled around, the girls did, too. It was awesome! SO... on Sunday, we watched the Orca show again, and then got to get up close with them and talk with the trainers while we ate lunch. It was pretty amazing.

After lunch, we settled the girls into their carseats for a nice long nap on the way home. Perfect birthday weekend for Dan and the twins!