Joy in our Journey........: Mexico

On the 6th day AL's dreams came true. She has been asking to swim with dolphins for years. Now I must admit that I haven't been a fan of that idea after following a group on FB that highlighted the dolphin kill in Japan and is highly opposed to animals in captivity. Anyway as we were planning our trip to Mexico and Alysha was having huge anxiety in January over going to school I was finally convinced to let a dolphin swim happen as a reward/bribe/desperate parent moment after a month of complete and utter exhaustion and insanity. I honestly felt a bit guilty the entire time but at the same time was completely and utterly amazed by these dolphins and all that we learned about them.
We opted to leave WR and T back at the resort since he was a bit too young for this.
We hopped on a bus for the drive about a half hour or so south of the resort. Once again it was eye opening and fascinating to see more of the area as we drove by.

The trainer that we worked with was so fun and kept referring to the dolphins as her babies. She was truly so wonderful and kind to them. For the first part we worked with a 20 yr old and her 2 yr old baby who had been born at the facility. It was so fun watching the baby attempt to do each trick and get loads of fish and praise regardless of her success.

Dolphin kisses are probably just the sweetest thing ever.

AL loved absolutely every moment of it and amazed me with how she just jumped into the chilly water with no hesitation each time it was her turn.

JA was pretty timid but he amazed me with how well he did.

After a while we moved to a different pool with two huge male dolphins (one was 670 lbs) and we got to go for a ride. Talk about the coolest experience. Dolphins work completely off of hand and body signals so the trainer would give the dolphins a signal from the opposite end of the pool and they would swim under us and come up from behind us right to our outstretched arms. The force was so powerful.

Once again AL amazed me with her bravery! She said a tail hit her at the end but was pretty pleased to have such an injury lol. Poor JA was completely intimidated at the thought of swimming with the dolphins and actually started to cry. I felt so bad but by the end of our time he was completely warmed up to them again and I half wonder if he would have done the swim then (he kind of does things in his own time as he warms up to situations). He did however love every minute of interacting with them, getting splashed in the face, petting them and hearing all the noises as they talked. Maybe just a coincidence but when he was teary one kept coming over to him and "talking" to him, so sweet.