If it's Thanksgiving, we must be at Sea World

We made our annual visit to Sea World during our days off this week. We love this little ritual of ours. It was only marred by the fact that Sea World chose to drag out all of the Christmas decorations early, and even changed some of the shows to have a Christmas theme. I'm not sure why they decided to mess with something that was already perfect the way it was, but we didn't allow it to dampen our enjoyment.

We had perfect weather...in the 70's and slightly overcast. It did rain briefly, but were enjoying the dolphin/beluga whale show at the time and didn't even realize it had rained until we returned to our wagon and found it was wet.

Henry continues to favor the dolphin/beluga whale show (called Viva), and I am pretty sure this is because the pre-show has what he calls a "silly guy" that does a funny and silly routine. He also loves the performers that fall from the top of the stadium into the tank, and when they swing and fly into the water.

This year, he was tall enough to ride two new rides. We had ridden the Texas Splashdown last year, which is similar to a log ride. We got a little wet, but not too bad last year. The same held true this year. But this year, we also rode the Rio Loco, another water ride. This one drenched me as our round boat navigated the rapids and the water splashed over the side with me as it's target. We rode it three times in a row due to the fact that there was no one in line behind us.

From there, we went on to Journey to Atlantis (which Henry decided to call Journey to the Mist, and of course, we all followed suit). This ride involved a boat, but there was no water until the end. You board the boat...5 rows of seats, 4 seats across...and head up a hill. At the top of the hill, the boat spins until you are facing the next part of the ride backwards. You go down a dip and up a hill (backwards) and then spin again until you are facing forward for the final part of the ride. For the final part of the ride, it is a drop straight down into a lake of water. For this ride, the water targeted Leslie. After riding this ride three times in a row, she was totally drenched.

After changing into dry clothes, we went down to the River Walk in San Antonio to see what might be open on Thanksgiving night so that we could grab some dinner. Fortunately, many places were open and the River Walk was humming with activity. We decided to eat at The Republic of Texas (Tex-Mex, of course).

Friday, we returned to Sea World, where we finished off the things we hadn't done the day before, and revisited some of our favorite activities. It was nice having Nana and Papa along this year (even if we did totally wear them out!!). Below are some pictures of the highlights.

>