Lions, Tigers, and Whales...OH, MY!

Hello everyone! We are on our way out of San Diego, the animal capital of the world. Well, at least it was to us. The only thing we stopped here for was The San Diego Zoo and Sea Worl

d. We had a blast at both. We arrived on Saturday and picked up our good friends from MD, Rachel and Jeremy El

lis, and headed to the Zoo. The two of them were good sports as we drug them around the zoo for much of the day. Or, rather, I should say that Jeremy and Gene drug Rachel and I around all day (both of them are animal lovers). I guess Gene already posted a blog telling about our zoo trip.....so on to Sea World!

Sunday morning we went to the San Diego Sovereign Grace church where Rachel's dad is the senior pastor. We had a wonderful time worshipping with the folks here. We even saw some people at the church that we knew from our church back home in MD (small world)!

After church Gene and I drove to Sea World where I had the best time of the whole trip so far. Here's what we got to see during our day at Sea World:
--two Shamu shows (apparently every whale here is called "Shamu")
--fed raw fish to some dolphins
--watched Magellanic Penguins get fed for about an hour (sadly, to Gene's dismay, the rest of the Antarctic penguin exhibit was under construction)
--saw the Arctic exhibit, which first led you into a helicopter simulation ride (where I almost threw up because of the motion sickness) and then led you to see polar bears, belugas, walri (is that really the plural form of walrus?), and some seals. This was one of our favorite exhibits.
--dolphin and pilot whale show (these are the only trained pilot whales in the world)
--sea lion and otter show (absolutely THE BEST thing we saw all day...HILARIOUS!)
--visited the shark aquarium where we could walk under the shark display
--went into the manatee rescue house (Kel, we were thinking of you)
--sting ray petting pool
--flying acrobat show at the Cirque de la Mer (this was one of my favorites because of my love for dance)

These were just SOME of the highlights of the day. There is much more to report, but we'll spare you the details (for now). Check out some of our favorite animal shots from the Zoo and Sea World...

Beluga says, "Bye, Bye for now!"