SeaWorld's Christmas Celebration

December 6th, we headed down to San Antonio to go to SeaWorld's Christmas Celebration.  

We got there a few minutes after 3pm and there was a show--The Shamu Story--that had just started.  We went as quickly as we could to see the show--we parked the stroller near all the other strollers and headed into the theater.  

We got there at 3:15 and knew we would miss some of it, but it was the end.  We literally caught the 'tail' end of the show.  We figured we might have missed a few minutes of it, but to have a show that was only 15 minutes..?  Doesn't seem worth it to even have a show.  

So we walked back out to get our stroller.  We weren't gone more than 5 minutes and it was GONE!  Paul wanted me to grab our backpack before leaving it, but I said that others had left all of their stuff and it would be fine.  So when we came out and our stroller was gone, we were in shock!  We looked around at all the people leaving, making sure they hadn't taken ours by accident and we couldn't see it.  We went walking around to see if we could see it but still had no luck.  I saw a few SeaWorld employees and asked them what we should do.  One of them called security and while I waited to give a statement, Paul was calling to cancel our credit cards.  I then felt to ask about the stroller parking and if there were any rules.  I felt impressed to ask if we had parked on the grass if they would take it.  Security said that we aren't supposed to park on the grass and the employees might move it.  So I told Paul to wait on canceling and to ask the employees that were in front of the Shamu theater.  Thankfully they knew where it was!  They were the ones who moved it.  It would've been nice if they had told us...I mean they saw us park the stroller in the wrong place--they could've motioned to us to not park it there.  We didn't know the rule about the grass...and they could've just pulled it off the grass.  Nope.  They took it off the grass and all the way around the theater where we couldn't see it where we exited.  

So after that exciting start to our day, we continued on to other things.

We caught the Sesame Street characters in Elmo's Christmas Wish.  

We walked around and took pictures of the Christmas decorations.  

We got to see some of the animals too--the penguins are always fun to see...

...and they even had a reindeer!

And guess what?!  When we were sitting in one of the theater's waiting for A Dolphin Christmas to begin, a lady with a couple of kids came to sit next to us.  I glanced up just to smile and make sure there was room...when I recognized her!  We looked at each other and I started to say her name and she was trying to think what my name was.  I knew she had been Kami Rasmussen, but couldn't remember her last name.  And she knew I was a Jensen.  She thought I was Maren at first, but I told her I was Kayley.  What a small world!  I had known her family back in North Dakota--when I was age 10-13--and we just happened to be sitting in the same row at the same show in SeaWorld in San Antonio, Texas!  What a great surprise!

We liked the dolphin and beluga show.  We noticed that it was pretty much the same show that they had this summer, but it was set to Christmas music.  Oh well, it was still entertaining and fun!

We took Glenn on some of the kiddie rides and he really enjoyed that.  I love seeing his excitement and joy!  I couldn't get a good picture of him on the roller coaster, but he had fun.

He had fun with daddy on a ferris wheel type ride.

And he even got to go on a ride by himself.  I loved the little smile he tried to hide!

Our last show of the night was Miracles.  We actually got to see the killer whales swimming and jumping out of the water this time.

We headed out of the park--as it was closing and there was no more shows or things to see--and we caught the cast of some of the shows singing carols.  I really loved that they sang Christ songs.  They weren't just the jingle bells or Santa Clause songs--they were actual Christ songs.  It was a beautiful way to end the day!