sea world adventure

my parents and bekah, jared, and rachel came down for a san antonio visit this weekend. friday was rachel's 10th bday so we went out to eat at clear springs cafe and had birthday cake and stuff. saturday my parents and bekah went to austin for a wedding (after watching portugal defeat england) so it was up to ross and me to entertain jared and rachel. we hit up barnes & noble, baskin robbins, church, my swimming pool, and blockbuster, all just biding the time for sunday morning to hit so we could go to....sea world. for my 5th or 6th bday my family made a well remembered trip to sea world which i still remember, with the sea lion show (still playing the same show) being my favorite. second time around, it is still the favorite, of everyone that went i think. rachel was quite determined to ride 'the steel eel', a roller coaster with 3700 ft of track, with speeds of up to 65miles per hour with a g-force of 3.5, and an initial 150ft drop. i was unsure of her dedication (and my own) but she never wavered, even as we buckled in. it was on the initial ascent that she whispered to jared her first signs of fear, and i began to regret my decision the minute our descent started as she began to scream things like 'make it stop! make it stop!' and i began to fear what my parents might do to me, as you can see below. but, props to the kid on her 10th bday, she did it and had a great time. though we did sit out the great white shark roller coaster, which is inverted, and left the boys to their own on that one. 2nd favorite was feeding and petting the atlantic bottlenose dolphins at dolphin cove. we also went to see the new shamu show, and rachel thought she might like to sit close enough to be splasehd. so we marched right on down to the front row (which didnt lead to very good viewing) and laughed as the other side was playfully splashed by shamu. when it was our side's turn to be splashed, much to our surprise, 4 killer whales were sent out to heave i dunno about 500 gallons of water over our heads. lets just say we were slightly wet. thunderstorms prevented us from enjoying the water park portion, but we did see the dolphin & beluga whale show, the sea lion show, the clydesdale horses, the sharks & sting rays, penguins, etc, and we also rode the log ride. at any rate, it was a fun day. best part is, ross and i opted to get season passes...whoop!happy 10th year, rachel!