We had a very tiring, but amazing weekend. With the great weather we've been having (at least before the rain came), we thought it would be nice to take a short trip to San Diego to visit both Legoland and Sea World. On Saturday, we and the McGowan's, went to Legoland, which was a lot of fun except Lauren was having headaches, her speech was off and she was walking funny, which had us concerned. The reason we didn't totally freak out was because she was up late on Friday night and her last boost of Decadron (steroids) was over a week ago, which would have been wearing off by now (I don't know if we'll ever get her off of that stuff). We gave her Decadron (2 mg) Saturday morning and another 2 mg in the afternoon, which seemed to help a little bit (she has never seemed to fully recover from her last big round of chemo and when she got sick and went into septic shock), but being the trooper she is she didn't let that stop her from having fun. She was determined to have fun, and she did.

On Sunday we went to Sea World. They have a great deal where you pay the regular entrance fee and get the rest of the year free. The first show we went to after getting our free beer (Sea World is owned by Anheuser-Busch and it's free!) was to go see Shamu. Lauren, the germaphobic, wanted to sit in the splash zone. Obviously, the fact that the water is where the killer whales (can I still call them killer whale? I'm surprised the PC police hasn't put a stop to that. It seems so un-PC to call them killers) pee and poop, didn't cross her mind. But no, we didn't sit in the splash zone. We're not going to get soaking wet so early in the day when it was cold (relatively cold, it was in the low 60s) outside.

During the show they had a little girl from the audience participate in the show. Her face was shown on the stadium big screen and she got a necklace and got to feed one of the killer whales (KWs). Lauren asked how she could be in the show. We told her that the girl was just lucky and was selected. After the show, since it's too hard for Lauren to fight the crowd and walk down the steep steps at the same time, we lingered in the stadium. I noticed that they still had a KW swimming around in the stadium pool. I thought the kids would like a closer look, since they have a glass wall, so we went down to the pool. A trainer, Lindy, was hanging out saying "hi" to people walking by. There must have been something about Lauren that caught her eye (I don't think it was her bald hair, Lauren had her hood on, but maybe), because she started a conversation with her. She had the KW (I'm not sure of its name, they have 4 orcas at Sea World) come up to the edge and say hello and wave. We told Lauren to ask her question (about how she could be in the show). And no, I'm not going where you think I'm going, Lauren didn't get to be in the show. She got to do something better. Lauren got shy and forgot her original questions, so instead she asked, how can I pet a killer-whale? Lindy responded by asking, do you want to come backstage (the non-public area, where they house them) with me? We said "sure!!" Once in the back, Lindy called her boss to see if it would be okay for Lauren to pet a KW. But the boss said, no, not today, but the girls can feed the KWs snow balls. So the girls got to throw snow balls into their mouths. They told the girls to not lean or reach over the side, but Lauren kept doing both. I kept thinking she was going to fall into the tank. I not sure if the trainers were worried the KWs would grab her, they are wild animals after all. But thankfully she didn't fall in and they didn't grab her. They also warned us to be careful, baby Shamu likes to spit regurgitated fish at people. I think baby Shamu wanted to, but the trainers kept telling him "no." The girls could see a regurgitated fish in his mouth. What a wonderful experience. I can not tell you how grateful we are to people like Lindy, we forgot the name of the other trainer. When meeting people like Lindy (trainers or princesses or characters) I do take off Lauren's hat or hood so that they can see Lauren's is "special" not in the hopes of getting free stuff, but in the hope they'll pay Lauren special attention or have more patience with her. Lauren was dealt such a bad hand in life, I just want to fill her life with as much special and wonderful experiences that we can...just in case. So thank you Lindy, and the other trainer, we can't tell you how much this meant to Lauren and us. Hopefully they'll visit Lauren's site, I gave them Lauren's blog address. It would be nice if Lauren could ask them other questions and stuff. It is definitely an experience Lauren and Marissa or Hilary and I will never forget.

Lauren, when looking at pictures, has been telling both me and Hilary lately that she would like the pictures better if she had hair. So on the way home I asked her, "Lauren, do you know why Lindy asked you if you wanted to feed the killer whale?" I said, because she can tell you're going through chemo because you have no hair." What I was going with was I wanted her to know that not having hair was an advantage and also that these things might not happen for her in the future once her hair grows back. But she said, "No that's not it. You know what I thinking the reason was? It's because I'm special". Both Hilary and I, couldn't argue with that, we just said, "Yes, you are special."