Despite the freezing weather, we ventured out to the zoo on Monday afternoon to see the animals and the Christmas lights. They have a beautiful display of Christmas lights every year--much like the Rhema lights (for those of you who have lived in Tulsa)--with tons of animals. We got to the zoo around 3 and walked around and took pictures of the animals until the dolphin show at 6:30.
During the show, they have a time where you can go all the way down to the glass in the splash area and the dolphins will blow bubbles, wave hello, and spin in circles--without splashing. Anna LOVED this--she wasn't afraid at all and seemed to have a good understanding about what was going on. Then the dolphin disappeared. And the trainer said, "I don't know what she's doing..."
She had decided to play a joke on all of us. I had just enough warning to turn my back to the glass and shield Anna from most of the water. (Unfortunately, all the pictures Brandon took of the actual splash were too blurry, so he deleted them.) My entire backside got soaked and Anna's head was pretty wet (she cried a little). The trainer felt so bad about us getting wet (on what was the coldest night of the year so far) that when the show was over, she invited us back to the training area to pet the dolphins!!! It made getting wet totally worth it!
At first, Anna was scared. I think she was more scared of the large expanse of water than she was of the dolphin.
"Daddy!!! Save me!!!"
In this one Anna is waving 'hi' to the dolphin:
She's holding on to Brandon for dear life...
But then decides that it's ok to join in...
And then she even got brave enough to feed Riley a little snack.
(Too bad it was with the same hand she uses for sucking her thumb!)
This is Riley waving goodbye to us:
On the way home (while Anna slept) Brandon and I talked about what an awesome experience it was to be able to actually touch the dolphins. Probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
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