San Antonio

San Antonio was great fun! We stayed in a beautiful hotel right on the river. . . and were so totally lucky. Ours was one of about six rooms on the eleventh floor only that had a sliding glass door that opened to a balcony overlooking the river. We ate at the hotel restaurant one night and it was wonderful too. . . I had some kind of shellfish stew that was a cross between gumbo and tortilla soup. I brought the mussel shells home as a memento. There was an extraordinarily comfortable lounge area just outside the restaurant (I know this because we had to wait an hour for a table at breakfast the next morning), and just beyond the lounge were the doors that led to the river. There was a cute little island with a bridge that the kids really enjoyed. We walked up and down the river a ways and Ashely said it was her favorite part of the whole trip. The hotels were packed tight together and each one seemed to do something interesting with their section of the riverwalk. Ashley was intrigued by a cute little water fountain/fall. It rained *hard* the next morning and the poor river was filled with all kinds of trash from the run-off water. I was glad we took our walk the day before. Karlon made a funny joke about the boats on the river. I'd commented that I didn't like how packed the seats were on the boats. . . and that I didn't care to go riding shoulder-to-shoulder with some of those people. He said, "Bubba and Jolene come up to take a ride on the river." I'm still chuckling over it as I type.

And Ashley did get room service. She was totally thrilled! The kids watched Ice Age 3 and Alvin/Squeakquil while they ate in one of the bedrooms and I got roped into watching another end-of-the-world movie with Karlon. . . 2012. It's pretty much a ritual for him to rope me into watching one and start counting interjections. "yeah, right!" is my favorite. Remember Dante's Peak? I still can't quite wrap my mind around how the guy's tires didn't melt instantly while he was spinning his wheels on the hot lava. There were several such moments in this movie too. I guess it wouldn't have been much of a movie if it had ended ten minutes in, though.

Before we left town, we ate at Magic Time Machine. It was great. Tinker Belle was our waitress and she sprinkled pixie dust all over everything. The kids had never been there before and they all had a blast.

We got home around 3pm and that left me plenty of time to finish the cleaning project I started before we left. I now have a perfectly clean (not overhauled, mind you) downstairs. We won't talk about the upstairs in this post. Maybe another time.

Anyway, I feel rested and ready to take on the last eight weeks of school! Here we go!