Orlandoland

Gosh it's interesting here.

Things I learned at Sea World:

1. If you want to be the audience volunteer in the Shamu show, you have to wear tennis shoes. I was so close! It could have been me getting that kiss from the whale -- Dan was sitting there next to the guy that was choosing people and he volunteered me, but I had sandals on. We had the most awesome seats though -- it was crazy. RIGHT in front and exactly right by the place where the whales come up out of the water onto the platform to pose and flip their tails.

2. I really do not like roller coasters. We went on "Journey to Atlantis" -- Benny and I. It is all very nice boatride through interesting scenes and then suddenly you get cranked up to the top of a giant drop and hurled out into oblivion -- terrible!!! Then you get turned around, dragged through a pool that drenches you with water, then cranked up another hill, and just when you think you're safe and you're in the total darknes, you get hurled down another precipice. The whole purpose of it is to shock and terrify you -- it is a "thrill ride." Well. I will not be doing that again.

3. Benny is RIDICULOUSLY BRAVE!!! We went down that miserable abomination of a roller coaster/water thing and he NEVER PEEPED. In fact, *I* was clutching *HIM* as he sat there calmly absorbing it. When we finally finished up, he turned to the people in the boat sitting in the rows behind us (yes we were in front, by his request) and said, "Is everybody okay back there? Wow that was a WILD RIDE!" I mean, this ride was quite scary -- to the point that I sort of disagree with them letting kids his age on it... and he was completely IN LOVE with it. Had it not been shut down because of lightning, he would have cheerfully ridden it 65 more times. WITH HIS DAD.

4. Both of my children are incredibly reasonable and uncrabby, even when they're way overstimulated and in unfamiliar territory. Benny got a tiny bit crabby a couple times, mostly when I was demanding that he eat/drink/rest because I knew that he needed those things to continue his day, but he was able to think through it with me and comply with my wishes and never pitched a fit. Impressive. Sadie did pitch a bit of a fit, but bless her, she was well past her nap and she wanted to do the six storey rope climb with Benny and Dad, which would have certainly killed her, so she just had to pitch a fit a little bit, and then sleep. :)

5. Sometimes you can take your small children to an amusement park all day, then drag them out to dinner in a nice restaurant with all your husband's business associates, and then will behave PERFECTLY and be a DELIGHT. This doesn't teach us our lesson very much, but both Dan and I were so impressed and charmed with our children yesterday -- we fell in love with them all over again. SWEET PERFECT WONDERFUL CHILDRENS. They got a nice big stuffed Shamu to take home and they've even been POLITELY SHARING IT which - who could imagine that?

Have to figure out what we're doing today. Might go to Magic Kingdom or maybe not -- what to do, what to do? The plan was to take a rest today and go tomorrow but it looks like tomorrow is the hurricane. *PONDER PONDER*