So when I last left you, we had lost Jedi.
I was at one of the entrances to Shamu’s Playground describing Jedi to the staff.
It was one of the worst times of my whole vacation. It hurts even now as I write this to think about it. Yet, just yesterday when I mentioned that I was writing about this part of the vacation to Dh he said, “When did that happen?” I had to go into further detail to get him to remember. Finally he remembers when I mention we had watermelon. “ Oh yeah, when you spent $6 on watermelon.” I can’t believe he forgot about it losing Jedi but remembers I spent $6 on watermelon. I shake my head at his selective memory choices.
Anyhow not to leave you hanging much longer, as I was panicking and working on a plan to search for Jedi with the Sea World Staff, Cindy runs up to me.
“Mom, we found Jedi.”
Yay for Cindy!
“Where is he?”
“He’s at the picnic table.”
My relief was not complete until I could see him myself and hold him in my arms.
So off I run with to the picnic table with Cindy with the Sea World staff following behind just to make sure.
Sure enough there sits my delinquent little boy eating the $6 watermelon sitting between Dh and Poppa looking as if nothing was ever wrong with the world.
I grab him and squeeze tight.
I give the Sea World staff the thumbs up and they take off.
“Mom. You’re hurting me!”
“Well, young man you’ve just hurt me a whole lot”
“No I didn’t. I didn’t even touch you.”
“You most certainly did hurt me. How do you think I felt when we couldn’t find you?’
“I wasn’t lost. I was just playing. I told Dad where I was going.” Jedi is very defensive and doesn’t seem to understand that he did anything wrong.
“No, you didn’t tell me. You told me you were going to get snacks with Mom and Eeoyre.” Dh says in a scolding tone.
“Well, I was going with Mom. But then, I was hot and saw the splashing boat. I needed to get cooled down you know.”
“Of, course we all needed to cool down but Jedi, we are your parents and we are responsible for you. You knew where we were. You knew you were safe. You weren’t worried. However we didn’t know where you were. We didn’t know you were safe. It scared us and we were worried. That’s not being fair to us. In this family we tell each other where we are going. This rule isn’t just for us kids either. Imagine if Daddy and I just decided to go on the roller coaster ride over there and didn’t tell you so you couldn’t find us. How would you feel?”
“But Poppa is here so it would be okay” chimes in Eeoyre.
I throw him a fierce eyeball glare.
“Eeoyre that’s not the point and you’re not helping. Were you scared when we couldn’t find Jedi?”
“Yeah.” Says Eeoyre.
“Okay so let me talk to Jedi without interruptions from you so I can get him to understand how worried we all were.” Eeoyre slumps a bit.
“Okay so Poppa goes with us. How would you feel then Jedi?’ I turn my attention back to Jedi.
“Well, ….” Jedi thinks for a moment. I can tell he’s starting to understand the gravity of the situation. “I wouldn’t like that.” He’s using a smaller voice. Less defensive.
This leads to an in depth discussion about the evils of taking off without your parent knowing where you are and how scared Poppa, Dh and I were when we couldn’t find him. Eeoyre and Cindy join in as well and it serves to reinforce for everyone about the importance of this topic. Interesting that no one brings up a few days ago at the MK when Dh went to the bathroom without telling anyone. I had to bite my tongue not to say anything as I was already pissed off at him for dropping the ball today.
Dh and I have a discussion alone later. In my opinion none of this would have happened if I had been informed that Dh was leaving Jedi in my hands. Dh heard Jedi say he was getting snacks with me but no one told me to expect his arrival and that is where the communication broke down.
I could see the boat Jedi was talking about from the snack stand. I didn’t know to watch it.
You’re probably wondering if Jedi was on the boat than why couldn’t we find him? Well, he was on the boat. Then he got wet from all the water splashing and took off his shirt. Hence, looking for him wearing his clothes didn’t help. Then he decided to climb up into the above playground. The one with the nets that has a couple layers to it. That’s where he was. Up in the top layer with his shirt off playing happily while we were on the ground searching frantically.
Remember Cindy and Poppa had gone to look in the above ground playground. Poppa was going to stay on the ground watching Cindy as she climbed up. So it was Cindy that saved the day. She found him and coaxed him down.
After our long talk, and snack we retrieved Jedi’s t-shirt from the boat area, let the kids have one last splash at the boat’s splashpad and left the playground.
I was pretty much done after this. My ribs were still aching with each step (remember how I blew my nose too hard the night before to expel all that sinus buildup I had that had been causing me headaches) and I still had the blister. Never mind the whole emotional ordeal of losing Jedi. I could have left and washed my hands of Sea World and never looked back.
However, the kids were refreshed after their snack and I had my wallet hugging Dh to contend with. He knew we had already paid for lunch ($28 an adult) and there was no way he was going to let us leave without eating it.
We crossed the dreaded boardwalk bridge again (2nd time) and headed over to the see the dolphins. The lineup was huge as I had predicted and once again I was sad that we arrived so late today and missed the perfect opportunity to feed them this morning. However, the kids not knowing what they had missed were just happy to watch them interact with other kids.
We went down below into the underwater viewing area. I had heard about this area from other people’s trip reports and it is a not to be missed spot. It was relatively uncrowded and presented a great view for the kids. If you happen to be visiting Sea World defiantly put this underwater viewing spot on your list.
It started raining (we could tell from the rain drops on top of the water) so we stayed a little longer until it passed. I took lots of pictures trying to get just the right one when the dolphins swam by. However, my favorite turned out to have the dophins in the distance.
Here is my favorite picture of the day.
This picture isn’t bad either. I like how engrossed the kids are watching the dolphins and of course the fact that I managed to get the dophin in the picture. I just like the colours in the other one better.
Up next our prepaid lunch Dh wouldn’t let us miss. “Backstage at Believe” and amazingly enough my first alcoholic drink of the day. Click here.
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Glad to have you aboard.
Yeah I know you're thinking why didn't he take pictures? Well the Ballet line was the opening act and while I was backstage doing all the costume changes Dh got to sit in the audience and just enjoy. 
