The time we spent Mother's Day with the dolphins (way to show up, whales)

As a special Mother's Day treat to me (made possible by the fact that we happened to be in California), John booked a whale watching tour. We woke up early, checked out of our hotel, and drove to Balboa, where we boarded a ship and headed out into the open water. Neither of us had ever seen a whale in the wild so we were pretty dang excited (John had seen captive whales at SeaWorld and TECHNICALLY I have also, but I was two and have no memories of that experience).

We were reassured that just the day before several gray whales were spotted so we were feeling pretty confident that THIS was going to be the magical morning of our first large mammal sighting. Unfortunately the whales were feeling shy because we spotted exactly zero. Not even one tiny whale to be found. 

The dolphins clearly felt bad about the whole whale no-show because they really were overachievers. We must have seen at least 100, all jumping in and out of the waves and swimming along the bow and twirling just barely beneath the surface of the water, in perfect view. I've swam with (trained) dolphins before, which is an amazing experience in and of itself, but seeing them play and hunt in the open water was something completely different.

John and I spent a good chunk of the time saying things like, Don't you think we should go again when the baby comes? and Oh my gosh, he'd love this. Which actually, he probably won't for a few years at least. But since we're SO CLOSE to being first-time parents, we're allowed to be overly-excited about age-inappropriate activities. (I think that's the rule?) On the way back in to the harbor we saw a few sea lions, but they were real bummers in comparison to the dolphins. Way to lounge around and do absolutely nothing, sea lions.

As the icing on my Mother's Day cake, my family flew in and met us in preparation for our big Disneyland trip this week. We split the day between Balboa and Laguna Beach and it was full of slightly cool temperatures, pizza on the pier, waffle cones, little shops, and beach bunnies. Literally, some family brought their three adult rabbits and a whole stroller full of tiny baby bunnies. They ran around on the sand (?) and I don't even know, but if I lived by the ocean I would FOR SURE take my family of rabbits on beach excursions.