Yesterday was a rare day without any plans or chores to do, so to make the most of it we decided to head over to SeaWorld. Juliette has been trying to get me to go there or Legoland for months but I've been dragging my feet.

"Jason will love it!" she'd say.

"Yeah, but he loves the park, too, and that's free," I'd reply.

"They're still running 'buy one day, get the whole year free' deal!" she'd say.

"That's only a deal if we actually go back," I'd counter. "Why not wait until he's likely to remember it?"

That argument continued, off and on, for about a year, and I finally caved yesterday. I'm still not convinced that my points weren't good ones, but we did have a lot of fun.

To begin with, there's a gigantic, Sesame Street-themed playground there, complete with bouncy floors, fountains, and a huge net climb. Jason, of course, loved that. He also loved getting a chance to meet Elmo, Ernie, Bert, Zoe, and Cookie Monster, who have a dance show about every hour, followed by a photo op. At $13, the photos are kind of a rip, but Jason could hardly contain himself and we constantly had to remind him how to wait in line.

And then, of course, there are the animal shows. We saw the dolphin show first, and although Jason was a little intimidated by the loud music at first, he warmed up after a few minutes. And since no trip to SeaWorld would be complete without seeing the orcas, we went to the Shamu show in the afternoon.

"Jason," we asked, "do you want to see Shamu?"

"Yeah!" he shouted. "Yeah yeah! Shamu!" I have no idea where he would have heard of Shamu before, since this was our first trip to the park and he doesn't watch commercials. He did know, though, because he was shouting "Shamu!" and pointing as soon as the whales came out.

After the show, Jason passed out in his stroller while we walked around. Juliette and I used the opportunity to sit down and eat some funnel cake. He didn't sleep long--only about twenty or thirty minutes--and the first thing he did upon waking was look around and shout "Shamu? Shamu?" So I guess the experience left an impression.

It'll be a lot of fun once Jason gets older. The roller coaster caught his eye on the way in, and he was quite upset that he didn't get a chance to ride it. A lot of the things he wanted to do had height requirements of at least three feet, though since we sprang for the two-year passes (on sale for the price of a one-year pass), he may actually be tall enough before they expire. I'm looking forward to it.