Somersaulting cats and swimming with dolphins

We had the opportunity to go on a trip to San Diego with Keith's family right after Christmas. Our first full day there we went to Sea World. I'd never been before, but I had high hopes because my MIL said that she remembered (from her childhood) Sea World being better that Disneyland! We weren't disappointed (although I can't claim it's better than Disney). We LOVED the warm sunshine best of all. 

Oooing and ahhhhing at the dolphin show! Which she later recounted having swam with (vivid imagination!).

It was quite impressive with all the jumping and carrying trainers across the water!

Re-enacting the dolphin show for us in the kiddy "tide pool" (she still demonstrates dolphin jumps for us in the living room).

Yikes! Sharks!

Loved the Polar Experience

Beluga Whales

polar bears

more polar bears

penguins

more penguins

The "pet show" was another big hit with Kendall. They really were incredibly talented, obedient, animals! Kendall's favorite part was the "somersaulting cats" but we apparently missed that part of the show! The cats did climb and jump and run on command and to us that is amazing---we can't  get our 2 cats to do anything we want, so we have a lot of work to do before they can join this team of pets.

I guess we hit SD during an unseasonably cold  week.
When the sun set it got COLD! Like, felt like Spokane cold (meanwhile, Spokane was in the 20's so I guess it wasn't too bad!).

Mimi and her grand kids

she crashed while zipped up in Daddy's sweatshirt.

The Star of the park: Shamu! They've had to really tone down what they expect of the whales, and the trainers no longer get in the water so it was mostly a lot of swimming around to Christmas music and a few cool spins up on the stage :) But it's still so impressive what large and graceful animals they are! It was a great way to end our fun day.