Max's birthday with the dolphins!

Well, this kid hit the jackpot as far as birthdays go this year! We celebrated by swimming with dolphins on a gorgeous 85 degree day in Mexico:) Here are some pictures of the day. Sorry there are a ton of pictures! My thoughts on dolphins in captivity at the bottom.




Here the dolphins were singing Happy Birthday:)


I'm conflicted on this whole dolphin thing...I knew we were staying at a resort with dolphins and I knew that I wanted to give the kids this opportunity. However, it was tough to wrap my head around it because it's hard to see these wild animals in captivity. But...after doing this, I have a new outlook. While I think that their natural habitat is best, I did see the importance of this type of thing. We could tell Max, Mya and Ivy until we're blue in the face that they shouldn't litter plastic, plastic bags, etc. because it could hurt the animals of the ocean. However...it probably wouldn't really MEAN anything to them until they saw first hand what could happen. The trainers showed the kids how dolphins breathe. They saw the blow hole with their own eyes from less than a foot away. If we put plastic into the ocean, it could get caught on their blow hole and they will die. They have no other way to breathe and they can't remove it. They also talked about turtles and how turtles eat jelly fish and often get confused and think a plastic bag is a jelly fish and try to eat it. It gets caught around them and they could also die. I know it had a big impact on me and it for sure had a big impact on the kids. These dolphins had names (Eros and Charlie) and the kids fell in love. Who knows...maybe one day they will become billionaires and give all of their money to dolphin education or whatever. I just think there's definitely value in educating the young (and the old) through this type of thing.

All in all, it was an experience of a lifetime. Please enjoy the pictures as much as humanly possible. I paid $160 for them. Don't get me started on that...when a Mexican camera man starts to tell me about his 3 kids at home who he needs to feed I pretty much melted.

That night we ate sushi for Max's birthday dinner (his choice) and they brought out a special cake and sang happy birthday to him. It was definitely a birthday to remember!