Sea World...at last, the story can be told

So, we got up early to go to Sea World. We planned to leave at 7:00 a.m. Heather was in a car accident and her door got damaged. Jorge got her a new door at a salvage yard and put it on, but it didn't work right. Now it doesn't lock and it still won't open. David, Heather's boyfriend, got out of the car and locked the car.


Katie was still in it.


Now comes the heroic story of a 3 year old.


We tried and tried to get the door open but we couldn't. I suggested we try going in through the trunk. Well, Katie was fastened in her car seat, in the center of the backseat. We tried to push the backseat down so I could crawl inside to get Katie out, but it wouldn't budge enough. We tried to have David crawl in because he's only 3 and tiny, but we couldn't get a large enough opening. Thankfully, Katie seemed to be amused and wasn't crying. Thankfully, also, it wasn't mid-summer and HOT. Finally, Heather was able to push the seat down far enough for David to squeeze in. Katie was still belted in, now parallel to the backseat floor. I'm sure she wasn't sure what was going on. David squeezed in and HE DID IT! He got in! He was very proud of himself and starting beaming from ear to ear. There were cheers. "YOU DID IT, DAVID. YOU RESCUED KATIE!". There were applause. David was proud. He sat there, kissing Katie, smiling, and giggling, but not opening the door. We called to him to open the door. To pull up on the lock. He continued to smile and kiss Katie. We called to him to come close to the window and pull the lock up. He continued to smile and play with Katie. Hmm.....Finally, he pulled the lock up and we were able to get Katie out. It was now 7:30.

We got in the car and headed South. San Diego here we come.

Nothing is as enjoyable to me on a long, cold ride as a cup of coffee. I always have a cup when heading out in the mornings. Coffee makes me pee.

We drove for about 2 hours. David never fell asleep. Talk, talk, talk. Talk, talk, talk. David never fell asleep. Katie slept for a little bit. I had to go pee. I could feel the color on my face changing. I was sure I was green. I was becoming more and more uncomfortable. Finally, I got off the freeway and used a bathroom.


We pull into San Diego Sea World an hour later, watching the clock the whole time. We had 9:00 reservations. We arrived at 8:55.

Me: "Do you have the tickets?"
Heather: "Yep". What about David's ticket?
Me: No response. Bugged out eyes.
Heather: "Didn't Desiree give you his pass?"
Me: "No she didn't. I have to go peeeeeeeeeeee".
Heather: "oh no! Katie just threw up!"

Katie decided this was the perfect time to do her poltergeist impersonation. She threw up at least a cup of curdled milk--all over the place. She was wearing an adorable Elmo outfit so she could take pictures with Elmo at breakfast. Heather didn't bring her a change of clothes, other than a pair of pajamas for the evening. Katie stunk badly. She was covered in white cottage cheese. Heather wanted her to get at least a couple of pictures with Elmo in her outfit so she cleaned her up with wipeys and away we went.


I had to pee. I ran. Thankfully, there were not a lot of cars in the parking lot. David was slowing me down. I hoisted him up and ran with him too. Cursed warm, delicious, soothing coffee.

When we finally got inside, we went to eat breakfast with the characters. We saw Elmo and Big Bird and Zoe. The breakfast was not much to speak of. We have had the breakfast at Disneyland and thought it would be the same, for the price, but it was not much more than a continental breakfast at a decent hotel. Some scrambled eggs, waffles, dry cereal and milk. David ate one bite of sausage. Katie, still smelling like throw up, at a few pieces of Life cereal. I, arguing with Heather, who left me to carry her, tried to maneuver my 40 lb. purse, Katie, and David, and grab breakfast. I had a waffle.

The characters were moving around and we took a picture with Big Bird. I wanted Elmo and the staff promised he would come to our table, however, he never did. Katie and David got a kick out of seeing them though, and Katie tried to dance with them. What can I tell you? She has moves.

After breakfast, I took her into the restroom and gave her a sponge bath in the sink and washed her clothes with the hand soap. I changed her into long sleeved pajamas with the expectation that her other clothes would dry in a couple of hours and we could change her back into her Elmo outfit. Because of the marine layer, they never dried and she remained in her jammies for the whole day.

Both of the kids got pictures with Big Bird, Zoe, Cookie Monster and Bert & Ernie. Bert and Ernie are personal favorites of mine. When Heather was little, I spent many hours watching Sesame Street. I'm truly a fan.

Sea World has this awesome play area for kids. You climb up a large net to get into the bridge area and you run down one bridge, cross over to a hut, cross over again, to another bridge, run down....and get lost.

David went up one side, as fast as Dash, and I lost him. His mother is one tough bird. I feared for my life. I sent David and Heather up to find him while I stayed down and watched Katie. She played in a soft moon bounce type area, with large foam blocks. I kept my eyes open for David but could not find him. After several minutes I saw him walking with a woman. I nearly jumped out of my skin and ran up to him only to realize that he was smarter than all of us and had gotten staff to help him find us.

Once we found him, we took some pictures with Elmo. They had a section set apart to take pictures with Elmo and there was absolutely no line. They take the photos in front of a blue screen and then photo shop Sesame Street in the background and sell the pictures for $12. They are pretty good about you using your own camera though.

We decided to take the kids on some rides. Katie has only been on a couple of rides before. This was new to her. We took her on a little worm that goes around and up and down. I thought she would be scared, but she liked it. A lot. She clapped when it was over and shook her head when I told her it was time to get off. Next we took them on what are like tea cups. They liked those too. There are only 3 rides at the Bay of Play but lots of fun water games. Water and my hair don't mix. As the humidity rose, so did my hair. I was like a Chia pet and just wondering how large my hair would finally get. I think I was 6'4" when the day finally ended.

After the rides we decided to go see some shows or find the Star Fish and aquariums for the kids to look at. We stumbled upon horses. Clydesdale's to be exact. Drummer, Sammy, and Dallas. Two things I learned about Clydesdale's. Three.

1. They are HUGE

2. Heather's boyfriend, David really likes them.

3. Me, not as much.

The horses were very large, to be sure. I mean, about 8' tall where the saddle would go, not counting their heads. Extremely large animals. I showed Katie and David them and told David their names. We were ready to keep moving, but Heather's boyfriend, David, stayed about 20 minutes and couldn't get enough of them. I just wanted to leave. The kids wanted to play. I didn't want to be rude, so we waited and waited for him to get his fill of Drummer, Sammy and Dallas. Then he took some pictures with the truck outside and we moved on to the Star Fish.The starfish were pretty cool. Katie and David got to hold them. After that, we decided to eat. David went inside and saw the pretty pudding cup with whipped cream and sprinkles for only $4.95 and had to have it. I also got him a kids Chicken meal for only $8.00. David ate the maraschino cherry off the pudding and was done. Katie was asleep and woke up just at the end of lunch in time to get a few french fries. I ate jello.While walking to a show, we saw face painting and let David get his face painted. He had never gotten his face painted before. We showed him his options on a board and he picked a spider. A very cool spider. He sat still and let the girl paint his face. When he saw himself in the mirror, he beamed! He was so proud. He had been getting wet earlier, at the Bay of Play and didn't have his shirt on for a bit.

We never made it to a show. We kept missing every one. On our way in, they didn't have any maps available so we spent time walking around in circles.

We found our way to the Sky Cabins, which I LOVE and paid $3 each to go across the water. Sky Cabins rock. Why did Disneyland get rid of them?

The sky cabins were going to be the end of the day for us, but NO! Little David was walking and because he's learning to read, was reading a sign that said R A P I D. Well, dern it, doesn't RAPID look an awful lot like DAVID? So he turns and says, "I want to go on the DAVID". There is no line so I tell him I'll take him. I'm sure that I won't get too wet because it's off season now and no longer summer. We get on and get SOAKED. There is no line so when it's our time to get off, we just stay on and go on again and get SOAKED. David loves the Davids. He thinks they are awesome so we go on a third time and get SOAKED. His face gets wet this time, so he grabs my white blouse and wipes his spider painted face all over it to dry his eyes. His spider did not look quite the same after he was done. Luckily, he had clean, dry clothes to change in to. Unfortunately, I did not. I had to drive home all the way, wet, with the window down, because the car stunk like hot throw up by the time we got back to the car.

So, this was our day at Sea World. All the crazy events of the day had us worn out. I dropped David off at my mom's with Desiree. I sat there talking to Desiree about all the days events, when suddenly, I heard a loud bang that sounded like it could be a gun. I jumped up, stared at the door, turned to Desiree, who casually says, "that was weird, huh? He just kicked the door and ran". I had no idea that anyone had kicked the door and ran, but apparently, Desiree, who was facing the door, saw a 14 or so year old boy kick the door and run. There have been a string of robberies in my mom's neighborhood, ever since this Section 8 family moved in. I guess my mom was next on the list. Fortunately, they saw us sitting there and ran off. Thank God they weren't more aggressive. Desiree woke up my mom and we called the police. The police arrived and David, who was still awake, comes out of the bedroom with black paint all over his face, looking abused and neglected and we have to explain to the police that he has face paint on and they look at us suspiciously as though we don't bathe him.

Now we all have alarm systems in the house and my mom just paid $1600 for a new chain link fence to be installed in her front yard. A week later they did a raid at that house and had a write up in the Antelope Valley Press. Hopefully, they will be kicked out soon.


So that was my day. It started with us not being able to open a door and ended with one being kicked in. How ironic?