San Diego- Part 1

Our vacation started last Sunday. We waited for my Mom to get home from her 2 week vacation in Hawaii so the girls could see her and then we hit the road. Thankfully, we had an uneventful drive. I love those kinds :) Natalee slept a total of maybe 45 minutes and the rest of the time the girls watched movies and read books. We went straight to our hotel and checked in, unpacked and headed to Belmont Park. The girls rode the carousel and a boat right and we walked around a little bit before heading back to the hotel for bed.

Normally, I put Natalee in her pack-n-play out of view from us and she goes right to sleep. Not the case this time and it might just be because she wasn't feeling well. The second I put her in there she started screaming. She got so worked up she threw up. So she ended up sleeping at the foot of our bed and it worked out great. Haylee was awesome too, and we'd pretend we were sleeping until Natalee fell asleep and then I'd let Haylee play on the Ipad or with her video game. Most nights Josh passed out before Natalee and also Haylee would just pass out too. I was usually the only one awake.

Monday morning we got up and got ready and made it to Sea World before it even opened. Not too difficult since it was like a 5 minute drive and SW didn't open till 10am.

We went straight to the Dolphin feeding since Haylee really wanted to feed the dolphins. SW has changed a lot just in the last 3 years since we've been there. You now pay $6 per person but you get one-on-one time with 2 dolphins and a trainer. Everyone gets their turn petting and feeding the dolphins and plenty of time for wonderful pictures.

After that we walked around, checked out some other animals and went to the Tide Pool so Haylee could touch the star fish.

Haylee is (and has been) very fascinated with dolphins and star fish so she was in heaven! There were tons of star fish and both girls were able to pick them up and hold them as long as they kept them under water.

From there we saw the sea lions and were able to feed them as well. They are so cute. I love when they "bark" at you.

Natalee enjoyed walking around with her bracelet on and did very well staying by us. She was happy to roam around and kept walking in the dirt, grass etc because she liked the different textures.

Next up was the sky tram and then we went through the shark exhibit.

The first show we went to was the sea lion show.

That was the same as before, and still cute. The girls liked it. Then we were off to the new dolphin show which was just amazing. Best show at SW hands downs. We loved it so much we saw it twice, once each day we were there.

Before the show started we were parking the stroller in the stroller parking and Josh said "someone forgot their baby." I looked over at the stroller next to us and all I see are these feet kicking in the bushes. The people must have thought the other person grabbed the baby and instead they both left him. They did eventually realize and came back for him and we waited till they did. That was the laugh of the vacation.

After the dolphin show we got a Shamu pretzel and headed to the Shamu show but Natalee fell asleep at that point so Haylee and I went in to watch it.

Definitely not as good as it use to be since the trainers aren't allowed in the water with Shamu anymore, but it was still awesome to see these huge whales flipping through the air effortlessly.

Haylee enjoyed watching everyone in the lower section get soak. In fact, the rest of the vacation she would give Natalee a "Shamu splash" if she came in the bathroom when she was washing her hands.

We spent the rest of the day in Elmo land riding the rides and playing in the play areas.

The girls had a blast and SW was definitely our favorite place. The girls both picked out a Shamu stuffed animal as their souvenir and I got a Shamu tail rice crispy treat!