Sea World Trip 2018!

Today I'm linking up with Jessi and Jenn for "What's Hap-Pinning Wednesday."

We kicked off Eric's spring break with a mini vacation at Sea World! It was a relatively quick trip (we left Thursday night and headed back home Saturday night), but it was a blast!

Thursday:

The plan for Thursday was to head to St. Augustine, FL, that afternoon. St Augustine is only 2.5 hours away and pretty much an exact halfway spot between where we live and Orlando. But first, the boys and I (and my sister and Dad who were off of work that day) started Thursday off at Wells' preschool egg hunt that morning. It was at a farm and included a hay ride, so the boys were having a great time!

Hay ride with Aunt Ashley!

The boys headed out with my parents, my sister, and one of our family friends for St. Augustine later that afternoon. Eric is the head soccer coach at his school, and they had their championship game at 4:30 - so I stayed back and went to watch his game. They WON and are the region champs for the second year in a row! Go Mustangs!

Love that coach!

After the game, Eric and I headed home for a bit to finish packing and then headed across town to pick up my nephew who was getting in late from a class trip to Washington DC. Once we had my nephew, we headed down to St. Augustine and got in to the hotel around 2am. 

Friday:

We woke up bright and early and met everyone for breakfast in the hotel lobby. I was happy to see my boys, and we all ate, got ready, and headed out for the rest of the drive to Orlando. 

We were so excited to be at Sea World (and the boys were happy to be out of the car!). One of our first stops was the sea turtle exhibit. Wells has a stuffed turtle that he just recently started carrying around, and he was beyond ready to show Timmy the Turtle all of the turtles that live at Sea World. I will say, the 3D movie at the turtle exhibit was a little intense (and the volume could be turned waaaaayyyyyy down #justsayin), and both boys were scared at times. It was a really cool video, though.

So excited for the turtles!

Checking out all the fishies!

Timmy the Turtle meeting a fellow Loggerhead :)

After we saw some of the animal exhibits, Grayer conked out in the stroller. While he was sleeping, Wells got to ride the carousel and the train at Shamu's Happy Harbor (the kids area) before we headed over to our 3:30 reservations to Dine with Shamu. 

Carousel with Dad!

This guy was so tired!

I can't say enough good things about our dining experience! The food is buffet-style (and we were starving since we ate an early breakfast and were just now eating another meal!) and was really good. The seating is right next to the whale tank (behind Shamu stadium). While you're eating, you get to see the whales and also listen to one of the trainers talk about them. After your meal, all of the people who had reservations are taken into Shamu stadium for a private little show. The boys loved seeing the whales do tricks and, most of all, "toot" (which is what the boys thought they were doing when they made noises with their blowholes. #boymomlife). 

After the show, we headed back to Shamu's Happy Harbor and let the boys ride some rides and play on the playground. Wells and Grayer both rode their first "big kid" ride - the Fiddler. Wells rode first with Eric and our friend Katie and wasn't scared at all (surprising, because he is our very cautious boy). He did great! Then my mom somehow convinced me to put Grayer on the ride. Not gonna lie, I was freaking out a bit. Grayer was not feeling it either at first, but once the ride started, he loved it. 

Big boy ready to ride!

Grayer: "Mom, why???" ...don't worry, he loved it once it started!!

After that, we headed to the kids' roller coaster. I was sad I couldn't get on with him for his first roller coaster ride (but at 30 weeks pregnant it was obviously not an option!), but Eric was excited to get to experience it with him. I made him video Wells' reaction on the ride, and it did not disappoint! We were cracking up so hard at his face on that first drop. Hilarious! We were so proud of him, and even though the video might suggest otherwise, he really enjoyed it and told us that he wanted to go again!

We headed out when the park closed at 8pm and went to our hotel, The Sheraton Vistana Villages. My parents had stayed there before, but this was our first time. It was really close to the park and was a very nice property. We were planning to just give the kids their bath, feed them, and put them down (we were all exhausted), but the pools were open until 10pm and the one closest to our room had a great kids' play pirate ship area. I didn't get any pictures, but here is the hotel's website photo:

We got the boys' suits on and headed over for about an hour. We got back, did the bedtime routine, and crashed.

Saturday:

(So, I actually remembered to take my camera into the park on Saturday (unlike Friday), so I got some really great ones...but I haven't uploaded them yet. Womp womp. I am trying to be better about taking pictures on that instead of always just grabbing my phone, but with that comes the whole "forgetting to upload them for a hundred years" situation. So, I've got a couple of my dad's phone pictures, and if I can remember, maybe I'll add the better pictures to the post later!)

We slept in a little because we were all so tired. Once we got up, we ate breakfast, packed up our stuff into the cars, and checked out of the hotel. Once we got back to Sea World, we tried to cram in as much as we could.

The boys loved having their friend Katie on the trip!

We fed the sea lions and seals, visited the penguins, checked out the sharks, and played in the kids' area again. The boys had fun riding more rides, and Wells rode the roller coaster again. When he got off, he ran over to me and proudly told me he was "SO BRAVE!" One of my favorite parts of the day had to be watching the boys' reactions during the sea lion show.

30 weeks pregnant at the end of day 2 of constant walking = struggling.

We didn't plan on staying at the park so late since we had a 5-hour trip back home, but somehow we didn't leave until around 7pm. As evidenced by the VERY candid picture above, this pregnant mama was tired and struggling by the end of day 2. But I am so glad we got to do as much as we did in the short amount of time we were there. We headed to our cars, grabbed some drive-thru grub, and started the trip home. We made it back to Savannah around 2am, transferred the sleeping kids from their car seats to their beds, grabbed only the necessities out of the car, and went to bed ourselves! We had to be up and at 'em early for a fun-packed Easter (recap here).We were wiped out from a really busy but really fun trip and are planning to go back in the fall (we purchased the Sea World Fun Card that gets you free admission for the rest of the year). I already can't wait!