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We spent 2 weeks of November on vacation!  A week of that was at Canyon Lake, near San Antonio, TX.  Ryan and I honeymooned in San Antonio and then later moved there for a short 8 month stay while he was in school in the Army so we were excited to get to go back and show the kids!  For this trip, we were so happy that we chose a southern destination to keep our arms and legs warmer!  While we were there, we were amazed to see that none of the pools had been drained or covered.  My kids even took a dip in one of the outdoor pools, even though it wasn’t exactly what I’d call warm enough.  🙂  It was the experience I suppose.  

Sea World, San Antonio

While we were in San Antonio, we had the awesome experience of taking the kids to Sea World.  Living smack dab in the middle of the United States, we don’t have very many opportunities to see sea creatures, so my kids were eating it up!!  We took soooo many pictures!  I won’t alarm you by posting all of them, but I wanted to share a few of the best ones!

We arrived before the park opened.  We noticed in the fall, they’re only open on the weekends and only about 6 hours at a time, so we decided to get there early so that we could hopefully get everything done.  We were successful!  When we got there, we were greeted to this beautiful entrance, already decked out for Christmas!

 

Soon, we went to our first show.  It was a pet show.  I think, even though they loved all the sea creatures a lot, they may have loved this show the best!  It’s because of all the wide assortment of animals they used.  Not only were there dogs and cats, but there were ducks, pigs, and a SKUNK!  EWWW.  (don’t worry, no smell came from the thing).

This show was to help raise awareness of pet adoption.  They had gotten all of their dogs and cats from a local animal shelter and trained them to do these tricks.

 

We were pretty impressed that you could get a cat to do anything.  Don’t cats always just do what they want to?

 

After the first show, we took in a few rides.  My older kids loved the roller coasters, while the littler kids loved the little kid rides.

But then, it was time to go see the Sea Lion show.  I thought this picture was a great one, showing off the character in this guy!

 

Of course, my kids thought it was great to see that you can even train a sea lion to hide his face!  🙂

 

After the show, we went down to the sea lion tank where were able to purchase some fish to feed them.  My 8 year old was so brave in holding a raw fish……

and these guys were eagerly waiting for her to throw it down to her!

We figured we’d pause long enough to get a family picture, proving that we were actually together that day!  The poor stranger we grabbed to take our picture did a great job!

I loved this pose of the family all trying to get the dolphins in the dolphin tank to come up and say hello.  They weren’t all that successful (although my 8 year old would like to say she ALMOST touched one) and I didn’t even get a great picture of the dolphins, but they loved getting to see them so up close and personal!

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We let the kids go on several more rides, and then finished up on the last show of the day.  The Killer Whales!

They can pack quite a splash.  Ryan and I ended up getting separated from the older kids, as we arrived to the arena late (we had split up for a short time to let everyone enjoy the rides they wanted to be on).

 

The older kids were sitting way across the arena in a very big splash zone.  We ended up being thankful that we did not sit with them, as one of the whales came and just drenched them with water!  It was hilarious!  Thankfully, it was the last show of the day so it didn’t matter if they were a little wet.

 

The sheer size and beauty of these Killer Whales is amazing!

 

If you’ve never been to Sea World, I highly recommend it.  It was definitely the best part of our trip to Texas (and we had a lot of fun the whole time, so that’s saying a lot!).  If we lived close, I’d consider buying season’s passes.  It was a great educational experience for my children.  In fact, my 11 year old has since taken a great interest in sea creatures and is studying them with Apologia this year!  She’s already learning a ton!