Thursday and Friday = Sea World

Thursday morning/afternoon and Friday evening were spent at Sea World. What a fun and educational place that is! And what a difference going after 4pm makes! Friday was sooooo enjoyable...slightly overcast and threatened to rain, but didn't. And the temps were about 20 degrees cooler, so that was an awesome plus. Brooklyn and I throughly enjoyed seeing all the animals and Chad, Eric, and Caroline LOVED the new roller coaster, Manta, where you fly "superman style" underneath the coaster tracks.

Brooklyn's favorite spot: The Penguin Habitat. We saw 200 penguins just "chillin" in their habitat. They were so cute (and their building was soooo cool!). :-)

Brooklyn and Bryce were so cute in their Thing 1 and Thing 2 t-shirts.

We found another carousel- yippee! Brooklyn and Nanny having a fun ride.

We tried to convince Brooklyn that the "teacup seashell" ride was also a lot of fun. Despite Chad and Eric's demonstration, she was not convinced it was the ride for her. However, it was great fun for us to see two grown men crammed together in one small seashell.

The Shamu show was awesome! Those killer whales truly are incredible!

We also saw puffins (so cute!), dolphins (Bryce got to feed and pet them!), sea lions (we fed them small fish), manatees (eh, kinda boring), sting rays (petting pool, but Brooklyn and I were not interested in touching anything), walruses (HUGE and kinda weird looking up close), beluga whales (so cute!), polar bears (well, one's butt), sharks (of all shapes and sizes swimming above our heads), hundreds of fish (in several different tanks), manta-rays (very neat to see "smiling" above our heads), etc.etc.etc. It was an awesome place to visit!

Saturday, we spent some final hours with Eric and Caroline back at the house. We packed up our stuff, said our tearful goodbyes, and started driving north. We made it to Savannah where we stayed in a hotel for the night. (Chad looked for Paula Deen!) Then, Sunday, we slept in, ate our continental breakfast, and drove the rest of the way home. What a wonderful vacation as a family! We loved being with Eric and Caroline in their last days in Florida and cannot wait to start planning a family vacation out to Los Angeles!