We headed out Friday morning after boarding
Tigger. We wanted to leave at like 6:30am, but the place where we leave
Tigger doesn't open until 7:30am, so that put a damper on us leaving before the sun came up. Kids were packed with their game boys,
iPods, word search books and snacks. We made pretty good time and the question, 'Are we there yet?' was only asked maybe 5 times. The first one came - an hour into the trip. We made our first stop in Round Rock to eat lunch and then got back in the car and went to
Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. We had the boys choose between the Wildlife Ranch and the
Natural Bridge Caverns. They chose the Wildlife Ranch, thankfully. I went to the Carlsbad Caverns (in Carlsbad, NM) so many times in my childhood, I'm set for life on seeing caverns. We drove through the ranch and had fun feeding the animals. The Emus and Zebras were the best. The Emu scared the CRAP out of me and then Jason decided to feed him out of the bag. While the pictures show just a little bit of it, it was quite
amusing. The Zebras were hilarious. They would not leave the car. We had people driving around us b/c the Zebras wouldn't move. I was trying to get Colby to hand feed one of them and he got scared. One of the Zebras got a little friendly with Jason and then sneezed all over him. (Thank
goodness I'm a prepared mom and packed the antibacterial wipes.)
After our tour of the ranch and getting to see all of the animals, we were back on the road for what we had hoped to be a short 20 minute drive to our hotel. Well, the short 20 minute drive turned into an hour due to a terrible wreck on our route. We finally arrived at our hotel, got settled in and unpacked. We then headed down to the
Riverwalk to meet up with Jason's dad and
step mom. The boys got to see the Alamo for the first time, but we were unable to walk through it b/c it closed before we got there. We enjoyed dinner on the
Riverwalk at
Zuni's. It really wasn't our type of '
mexican' food but it was good. We walked around the
Riverwalk for a little bit and found our way to Marble Slab. Yum! We finally called it a night and headed back to our hotel. The following morning we get up and get ready. I opened the curtains and saw in the parking lot, my old high school charter bus! Mind you, we are 400 miles from my hometown. I was determined to see someone at breakfast from Wink. Although, any of the kids that were there probably don't even remember me, since it has been 11 years since I was in high school. I did run into one girl who recognized me and then I ran into my old Computer Applications teacher and my old Biology II teacher/coach. It is such a small world!!
Saturday, we got up, had breakfast and headed to Uncle Mike's house (Jason's Dad's Brother) for Jason's Grandma's 80th b-day. All of Jason's Dad's side of the family were there. There were lots of Uncles, cousins and 2nd cousins that the boys and I had never met and that Jason hadn't seen since they were little kids. We had a fun filled day of hanging out, swimming, hot tubing, and catching up. Uncle Mike smoked brisket and sausage, Aunt Kathy made potato salad, pasta salad, and lots of other goodies. We were all fed VERY well!!!!!! It was great for everyone to be together to celebrate Grandma's 80th bday. She made sure to let us know that we had to do this again for her 90th bday. We can't wait!
After a long day of hanging out with family, we finally called it a night and headed back to the hotel to get some rest before Sea World on Sunday. We got to Sea World right as it was opening. I packed a few snacks and a bottle of water in the boys backpacks. We came up with a game plan to watch all of the shows we wanted to see first and THEN go to the water park. We went and saw Shamu, Sea Lions, Water Ski, and we tried to see the Dolphin show, but not once but twice, we got there too late and the place was packed. We finally headed over to the water park but had to wait 25 minutes to get in. Right as we go to the turnstile to get in, it started raining and thundering. So, we waited under the awning for 15 minutes. I was getting antsy. I'm not a 'crowd' type person and I had all of these people around me trying to get in under the awning. Eck....It grosses me out just thinking about it. They finally started letting people through into the water park, but it was still lightly raining. They couldn't open the pools/water slides until they didn't hear thunder/lightning for 30 minutes. It would be silent for about 10 minutes and then a rumble of thunder would pass. Finally, we said screw it. I went and go a locker, put all of our stuff in it and then went about our way back to the rest of the park. It is still lightly raining and at times raining pretty good, by this point. We made our way over for the boys to feed the dolphins ($5 for 3 little minnows or whatever they are!!!!!) We then went to see the Sharks/Coral Reef area.....trying to stall and hope that it will quit raining. Nope...it was still raining when we left the Shark exhibit. We made our way back over to the Dolphin show, mind you an hour early this time. Guess what.....we got a seat! Whew! It was a long hour of just sitting, but it was worth it to see the dolphin show. The sun finally decided to show it's face again. Thankfully, b/c the radar I kept checking on my iPhone during the dolphin show didn't show to be very promising. We hauled booty back over to the waterpark and thankfully did not have to stand in line to get BACK into the water park. The boys were in heaven! They mainly stayed in the wave pool which they just thought was the best thing (even though they've been in one before). They didn't seem interested in riding any of the slides or tube rides. We finally convinced them to go hang out in the lazy river for a little bit. We are lucky that the boys are at an age where we can give them a little freedom, and not have to be by there side every step of the way. They are pretty good about being punctual and checking in when needed. While the boys were enjoying the lazy river, Jason and I decided it was about time to go. We packed up and hit up the gift shops. We gave the boys a certain amount of 'spending money' each day that they could use or carry over to the next day. (My mom did this with us kids when we went on trips and it worked out well.) The gift shops were the biggest BEAT DOWN of all at Sea World. We went to 4 freakin' gift shops and they boys STILL had the hardest time finding something. They wanted to get SOMETHING, but nothing really seemed to catch their eye. It was a jurassic beat down doing this as the last thing before we left, but I didn't want to lug around whatever it was they bought all freakin' day long. After we finally finished up in the gift shops, we made our trek back to the entrance to leave. We 'had' to take a family pic, but it was at the end of the day...a LONG day, so it really isn't that fabulous of a picture. Oh well! While treking back to our car, we found out that J's Dad, Sisters & Family, and Uncle Rudy were all down on the Riverwalk for dinner. We high tailed it from Sea World to downtown just in time for dinner. We ate at The Original (I think that is the name of it). It was damn good mexican food!
Monday, we packed up and headed out. The boys HAD to swim at the hotel pool, so J let them swim while I packed up our bags. We hit some traffic along the way, but nothing terrible. We made a stop in Salado at Dairy Queen. A road trip in Texas isn't complete without a stop at Dairy Queen and a Blizzard!!!!!!!!!
Colby, Josh & Hudson
