SeaWorld Summer: Trip 2

We headed back to San Antonio for our second trip to SeaWorld.  We filled up the church van and Jake's truck, and we got to the park a little after opening (which is big for us!).   The kids were really excited, and I was super excited by the semi empty parking lot that we were met with.  I don't know if it was the Spurs parade happening downtown that day or the fact that it was an overcast Wednesday, but it was the PERFECT day to be at SeaWorld.  All day long, we walked on to rides, showed up at shows minutes before they started and got good seats, and enjoyed the light day at the park.




The girls took a group photo!



Emmy desperately wanted to ride this the last time we were here, but there just wasn't time.  I made sure it was my first priority today.





Group photo...this is a little out of order.



Emmy and I on top of the ride.  It had a killer view.



Not too shabby huh?  You can see the whole Bay of Play.



Next Elmo and company were ready for photos and so were we!



The morning Shamu show was great.







We met up with these yoohoos right before lunch.





Seriously.  You can't take them anywhere.



After our sack lunch, we went to the dolphin cove to pet the dolphins.  We weren't as lucky today.





It was getting HOT, so we decided to change the littles and let them play in the water.










It was a great day, and we can't wait to go back again soon!

SeaWorld

I got an email a few weeks ago about a buy one get one free special SeaWorld was running on their fun passes.  For the special price, a pair of people could get together and purchase a fun pass for about $35 a person.  This was a great deal, and we shared the deal with our church youth group.  Many of the kids chose to participate, so we had big plans for SeaWorld trips this summer.

The only caveat to the deal was that you had to redeem your passes by the third weekend in May.  Hmm...we were almost there, so Mother's Day Weekend it was!

I decided that I would play fast and loose with my sensibilities, and I left my camera at home.  The following post is full of photos from my iPhone, and I am not sorry.  It was nice to just be in the moment with everyone, and not have to worry about my big camera all day.

Our first stop of the day was at the dolphin tank--Bradley's favorite spot in the park.


Apparently it was his lucky day because we had only been there for a few minutes when this happened.



Day. Year. Life Made.  But seriously, this is his screen saver at work.  I kid you not.








We let the girls run through the Bay of Play to cool off a bit.



Group pic!



The Azul show is probably my favorite show at SeaWorld.  We have also taken Emmy to it every year since she was born.  Cool Stuff.



After a few rides in the kid area, it was almost time to go home.





Some of us were going home in style.



One quick character meet and greet before we headed out the door.



The only problem with the car ride home is trying to decide how you will fill all of the glorious silence.



Can't wait for more fun trips this summer!

LEGIT Youth Service

Our youth group at church, LEGIT, put on a youth service recently.  The kids practiced songs, they filmed skits, and they in general worked hard to make this night a success.

Here is a photo of the group singing.



Pastor Brandon Fender of San Antonio's Generation X came and spoke a powerful message called "Silent No More."



After the preaching was over, we had pizza, nachos, and fun in the youth building.





I am perpetually amazed at the fire and spirit in some of our youth.  They are really becoming a close-knit unit...they are pretty fun too. :)

*I am working on some videos from the service, so I will update this post with a link when I get them finished.

BTAC Chili Cook-off

My church had a chili cook-off in honor of our pastor on Sunday.  I wasn't going to enter in the contest because we went out the night before, but I was afraid that we wouldn't have enough people enter the contest.  Early Sunday morning, I got up and prepared some chili.



As it turns out, there were plenty of contestants, but guess who won?  Nope, not my dad.

THIS GIRL!  Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!!













It was Mike's Birthday, so of course we had cake!

One Sweet Fundraiser...and a Long Night

We recently began helping out with our youth group at church again. We came up with the idea of making giant heart shaped cookies to sell for Valentine's Day. If each youth group member sold five, they would have enough money to pay for the camp that they want to attend in August. The group's goal was to sell 100 cookies. This may not seem like such a big deal, but the reality is that our church no longer has a kitchen or a facility appropriate for an undertaking like this. We decided that we would meet up at different adults' homes and break the kids into small groups to do all of the work.

This process was broken into three parts:
1. Dough Making & Heart Shaping
2. Heart Baking
3. Cookie Icing and Decorating

The biggest and most arduous of these tasks was the dough making and heart shaping. We started on the Friday night a week before the cookies would need to be made and iced. We met up at Nicole's house to begin our adventure. There was a great group of girls that came that night to help. They stirred dough until their arms felt like they would fall off. We did manage to stay focused by having a few mini dance parties and eating some pizza.





We made enough dough for 40 cookies. We thought this was a great start, but we didn't take into account that all of those cookies would need to be rolled out that night as well.





The kids all started drifting off either to sleep or went home around midnight, and that is when the real work began. Nicole and I stayed up until 5:00 AM rolling, shaping, and cutting out all those hearts. By the end of it, we weren't sure why were helping out at all anymore. There may have been some temporary bitterness involved.





By Sunday afternoon, we were feeling up to more baking, so we split the kids up and did some more. This time, we made sure to get the kids to handle the process from start to finish.











The next weekend, we met up on Saturday morning to bake and ice the cookies. I had a small group, but they were really hard workers. I even convinced a few adults to come over and volunteer their time as well.


At the end of the experience, we were dead tired, but we made over $1400 in profit. That's a success in my book any day.