Vacation continues...

Well as if the cruise wasn't enough vacation for one week, as soon as we got back to San Diego Dave and Nalene came out to Cali and met us for two fun days at Sea World. We had my mom and Eden, GG and Papa and Dave and Nalene. We opened and closed the park down two days in a row and we still didn't get to see everything. It took us like half an hour to get Avery to touch a starfish but finally Grandma Tobar got her to touch one. However she would have nothing to do with the sea cucumber that she kept saying "it's yucky!" Deke and I however were taking bets on how long it would be before Hunter went into the tide pool head first since he was leaning in so far. I was convinced that as long as he didn't hit his head on a rock that he would be fine if he fell in other than maybe a little startled. But he didn't :) Both the kids loved the Shamu show, I had forgotten how fun that one is. The lines were not bad at all, the only bummer was that it was pretty warm out. Ave absolutely loved the turtles they were her favorite, both the ones in the water and on land. I think we went back to see them three times because she thought they were so cute. I thought that for sure Hunter would be totally fascinated with the sharks and he did love them but he was more enthralled with the sting rays. When we got to the area where you can touch them one of the Sea World people came over and gave the kids a huge handful of little fish to feed the rays. Once we started feeding them they would come right up to you and stick their head up out of the water looking for fish. They are so cool feeling and Hunter was loving every minute of it. Deke and I cracked up when a big one came by and got spooked, it splashed its fins down quickly to get away and drenched Hunter head to toe. He turned around water dripping and then exclaimed "that was awesome!" He ended up choosing to buy a stuffed animal sting ray at the end of our trip and naming him "Manta" I of course loved to see the penguins, two years ago when we went to Sea World Deke asked someone to walk us behind the scenes of the penguin encounter and they actually took us into the penguin habitat. Then they took us to the penguin nursery and brought a penguin out that we could touch and see up close. It was so cool. It was so much fun to watch the kids experience everything, they were so cute. Hunter went on the big rollercoaster (his first actual big rollercoaster ride) and went on the rapids ride. Two days was just perfect to get in all the shows and get through all the exhibits. Thank you Sea World for providing such a fun family vacation :) :)

Day four and five

Alright time to finish up the cruise posts and move on to other blogging goodies so this we be the last one :) On the fourth day of the cruise we woke up and had breakfast together on the deck which was as usual fun and relaxing. Then we all headed upstairs to play some serious rounds of volleyball. It was so much fun, my dad is a pretty wicked volleyball player, and I had fun reliving my freshman Sunrise Mountain volleyball days. We played for hours, of course everyone had to talk trash and put on their game faces :) Then of course there was the institution of team names, can you guess which team Brenn was on??? Yep, the seagulls, yeah I know we are lame :) :) We had a whole bunch of other random people on the ship come up and join our games off and on throughout the morning. By the time we were done we were all sunburned and I even had a nice little bruise on my arm from playing. After we were done with the volleyball we still evidently had not had enough outside time so we headed over to the minature golf course. Golf is fun but none of us are very into it except maybe Dad and Deke so the rest of us played and sort of goofed around. After golfing we all sort of split up and enjoyed a couple hours. Deke and I played some giant chess and some ping pong and then headed to get the conference room set up for my dad's birthday present. I had gotten pictures for each of the girls of them and dad and made a DVD starting with the day I came home from the hospital through each child including grandbabies. We had each picked music that made us think of dad or that had a emotional tie for us. We went to dinner and all during dinner there was schools of dolphins tons of them jumping through the water right out the window it was so cool. After dinner we made dad skip dessert then hurried him down to the conference room. We had the room all to ourselves and set up chairs just for us in front of the TV. When I started the DVD a picture came on with my dad in a rocking chair holding me in a little pink blanket and I was barely a few weeks old. "Arms wide open" by Creed was the song I picked and it was so perfect. It didn't even take thirty seconds for his tears to start coming followed by every one of us in the room. It was so perfect, so worth it to see his face. Then we hit up a couple of shows and then headed to the upper deck to have desserts and played the drawing game. I will not go into explaning the game but Dad and girls here are a couple of pictures to remember it by :) :) We partied the night away and the next night got off the ship. It was such an amazing vacation I am so glad that we were able to take it together it was really special for all of us. My dad is such an amazing person, I am so thankful for him and the relationship we have. I love his quirkiness and how much fun he is to be around. Happy 50th dad, WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!

Day Three

Well unlike the other posts I will not have a summary of the day just a quick review since I am trying to post on my lunch break and have limited time. I wish I could post all the pictures because I have so many fun ones but between the cruise, Sea World with the kids and their beach trip I was at like two thousand pictures or something ridiculious like that. Someday we will come out of the dark ages and get the internet at the house :) :) Today we were on the ship all day so we decided to take advantage of some of the on board activities. Deke and I woke up and went and played the marriage game which was fun, of course the women won. Later we all met up for breakfast on the deck and watched the "hairy chest contest" as we ate. We spent a good part of the morning playing competitive rounds of ping pong. I had no idea how good Dad and Lisa were. Lisa is awesome! It was so much fun I hadn't played in a long time and it was a blast to get to play on different teams and try to beat each other. We played game after game after game. We spent some time lounging around on the deck since it was too chilly to swim and dad wouldn't go anywhere near the hot tubs (they were really foamy and it was sort of gross, community hot tubs :( ) We then headed inside and played a few rounds of BINGO which would get exciting when you would have only one number left and would stand up, only to moments later have someone else yell BINGO! We then played the marriage game or rather watched the marriage game which was fun. We kept busy all day then that night went to a delicious Mexican buffet on the deck and some dancing. We also went to a magic show and a comedy show.