McDoniel Family: Sea World Surprise

Hannah turned five years old this week! We are having a combined birthday party for the girls with our families in a few weeks, but wanted to do something special on Hannah's big day. I had in mind a special dinner somewhere but Dad had bigger plans. Tuesday morning, we woke up and got ready for school just like we do every Tuesday morning. Except this time, the car was loaded with suitcases and Hannah's backpack contained books and activities for the car as well as a clue as to where we were going. We headed down to San Antonio to play for two days at Sea World!

She was so surprised when she figured it out and told us that it was the best birthday surprise ever! We had a wonderful two days. The week before Spring Break is an awesome time to be there. No crowds and beautiful weather!

So, having a fully charged battery camera doesn't really matter if you forget it both days in the hotel room. I am very thankful for my camera on my phone so I could document our special time!

We splurged a bit and got a room at this hotel. It was a beautiful, old building and our room had two balconies that overlooked the San Antonio RiverWalk.

We got to San Antonio just in time for dinner on the RiverWalk. The girls loved eating right on the river and we even got to watch a duck and her (almost brand new) baby ducklings swim around.

Checking out the view of the river.

We got to meet Shamu as soon as we arrived in Sea World the next day!

This is probably the highlight of our trip. Our first stop of the day was at the dolphin tank where you can purchase fish to feed them. Hannah was so excited to feed the dolphins until we actually paid for them and she saw what she had to give them. There was no way she was touching those things.

We stayed around a bit and got to watch the trainers work with the dolphins. One of the trainers brought his dolphin over close to us and offered to let Hannah feed it some ice that was in his fish bucket. Since that is much better than fish, she jumped at the chance and within a few minutes, was feeding all nine dolphins ice. Such an awesome experience! She talked about her "ice friend" for the rest of our trip!

Some of the education guides remembered Hannah preferred ice over fish and let her feed ice to the seals and sea lions, too! They weren't quite as excited about it as the dolphins but she still loved it!