I have no hard data on this, but I would imagine that many people whose vocation is found in church ministry are pulling for more Tuesday holidays. Sundays are no Sabbath at all for most church workers, and many of us have Mondays off anyways :)

We didn’t really have a chance to celebrate Father’s Day this Sunday, what with running around like crazy people for the better part of the morning & afternoon at church, and then driving up to OC to my father-in-law’s place in the evening. So we decided to have our celebration on Monday instead.

After my interesting Mexican adventure, we decided to go to SeaWorld. We are season pass holders there. This is one of the benefits of living in SD: for most of the year, if you purchase a regular ticket at SeaWorld, you automatically become a season pass holder.

My daughter really wanted to take me to the tide pool there, which she recently discovered. There, children of all ages can pick up various starfish, conch and sea urchin. My daughter described the starfish as feeling “orange.” I wonder if that is anything like feeling Minnesota. We also took a fun Sky Ride around Mission Bay. Our daughter is quite a thrill seeker — our gondola lurched forward upon take off and immediately both her arms went straight in the air and she let out a heartfelt, “Woooo!” We pointed out the jet skiiers in the bay to her and told her one day we would ride together. She responded right away by shaking her head and saying, “No, I want to ride by myself!”

We took in the new Shamu show, “Believe.” It is quite a fantastic production, although I think they’re trying a little too hard to push the audience’s emotional buttons. For me, the best part was the four-piece moving video screen. As a wannabe tech nerd, it had me oohing and ahhing throughout the entire show. Sometimes the four images would be independent; sometimes they would move together to form one larger image. They could also rotate to show images from a landscape or portrait perspective as well. Like I said, I was nerding out over them.

We were also able to feed the dolphins. For some strange reason, one of my great dreams is to hug a dolphin. And a panda bear. We were able to go right up to the water’s edge and toss some little fish to the dolphins. They came right up to us and we were able to touch their foreheads. They feel, as many children have described during the big dolphin show there, kind of like hot dogs. What a joy!

We also went to play a couple of the carnival games there. The one game at which I consistently win (unless I get too cocky about it) is the tilted basket toss. I was able to win a small SpongeBob doll for my daughter there. But on Monday, I was able to toss a softball into a milk jug for the first time. My daughter had the choice of a huge dog, penguin or bear. She chose the large green care bear type creature.

Is there any greater feeling for a dad than seeing his daughter reeling under weight of the massive toy he has just won for her? Here she is, on the verge of collapsing under the weight of her victorious bounty. She also won a large dolphin on her own (kind of) by winning a water shooting contest against her dad. It was definitely a very happy Father’s Day!