Vacation: Part 5 (San Diego Temple & Sea World-The Second Day)

Annette had arranged for the youth in our family to go do baptisms for the dead at the San Diego Temple. Nicole and I decided that it would be an enjoyable experience to go with them. Besides they needed more men to help out. We had my mom and Julianne watch Rory and Andrew for us so we could go. It was great! It was really nice to be in the temple with Nicole again. It has been way too long since we have gone together. After we finished in the baptistry, we met each other in the Celestial Room. It was really beautiful--different from any other that I have seen. We needed to get back to our kids, so we didn't have time to take a lot of photos but I did snag a few. We wanted to be able to take Andrew to see the temple, but it just didn't work out this trip. Hopefully we will be able to take him there again some day.

We went home from the temple and took naps with the kids. They slept for a remarkably long time. It felt nice to catch up on some sleep. After we woke up we headed back to Sea World. We had made plans to meet Danny, Nici, and their son Jacob there around 4:30. We got there a bit before they did, so we took Andrew to see the Clydesdales. We then headed over to see the penguins, polar bears, and other arctic animals. While we were down there, we met my family. They said they would watch the kids so we could go on the Journey to Atlantis ride. After finding out that they wait was almost two hours, we decided not to go. It is a fun ride, but not worth that. We went back and got our kids and then Danny and Nici called us and told us they had arrived. We met up with them and headed into the arctic. Andrew was so excited to see the Polar Bear. He had been talking about it all day. Unfortunately this is all we saw of the polar bear...it's backside.

Despite his disappointment, he was still very interested. While in the arctic we also saw a walrus and some baluga whales.

After the arctic we headed over to the Sesame Street Bay of Play. When Nici brings Jacob to Sea World they spend hours in the Bay of Play. Jacob loves it there! So we played until dinner time. Andrew and Jacob loved playing in the soft pit.Rory loved the mirrors. Andrew had fun with them as well.Andrew and I also had fun running around on the bridges. And looking down on Nici and Nicole.

After a couple of hours playing we enjoyed a delicious dinner. After dinner Danny and Nici had to head home. And we headed to the sea lion show. It was fairly entertaining. They spoof the rest of the shows that they do at Sea World (i.e., Shamu's Believe, Dolphin Discovery, etc.). I found out that it is rather difficult to take good pictures of the night shows, but here are a couple of good shots. After the Sea Lion Show ended we pretty much ran over to the Shamu Rocks show. Andrew looked so tired and I wondered if he was going to last through the show. But he amazed me. He got so into it; with the music and lights and whales he looked like he was having the time of his life. He was dancing and clapping and didn't look at all tired. The cutest thing was that he wanted to hold his grandma's hand during a good portion of the show. Doesn't he look cute in his whale sweater?!

It was a long day and it was late, but we needed to find a souvenir for Rory. We ended up getting her a beenie baby Shamu. And we felt sorry for Andrew that he didn't get to see the Polar bear that he had been talking about all day, so we got him a second souvenir...a cute little hard plastic polar bear. He loved it! It was a great day for all of us and a good way to bring our San Diego trip to an end.