A very special New Year's Eve

We left Chicago on December 31.

It was an incredibly early flight... 6:15. When the limo came to pick us up, we all hugged my parents goodbye, told them how much we'd enjoyed our Christmas and said we'd miss them.

After all, as far as the boys knew, we wouldn't see them again until June.

We had told the boys that we had bought the cheapest flight tickets back to Sweden we could find. These "cheap" tickets took, us for some reason, from Chicago to Orlando to New York to Stockholm.

They fell for it. Kids will believe almost anything. :)

After landing in Orlando, we found an area in the airport we could sit and talk. We had "hours" there before our flight to New York, after all.

And then we broke the news... "We have planned all along to spend New Year's here in Orlando. We're going to Sea World!!!!".

The looks of joy and disbelief that crossed those three beautiful faces were worth all of the planning and the secrets and the almost getting found out.

And also worth listening to Matthew complain for weeks on end beforehand about how boring it was that we'd be spending New Year's Eve on a plane to Sweden.

So Sea World it was. The perfect place for New Year's Eve.

First we dropped our stuff at the hotel, switched into short-sleeve shirts (YES!) and then headed off on our adventure.

We fooled around with (metal) polar bears...

We saw the Shamu show during the day, but in the evening we had another surprise planned.... Dinner with Shamu.

This was incredible -- we sat right next to the orcas' pool, where we ate a good meal. Their pool is right on the other side of the plexiglass.

Nicholas got ahold of my camera again. He took at least 10 photos of water glasses. Artistic?

Part of the dinner is a special discussion of the orcas, which is held by their trainers. These creatures touch my heart.

The night ended with some amazing fireworks, with all of us sitting on the edge of the lake, wrapped in each others' arms, sipping a coffee (than you, Steen, my savior!) and thinking about how very, very lucky we are.

Well, the last part was at least what I was thinking about.