Port Aransas, Texas

My favorite beach picture

So, the last leg of our vacation was all about the beach.  My family went to Florida a lot when I was a kid and we've also been to Gulf Shores, Alabama a lot, but since we were already in Texas, we decided to hit the Texas beach.  We scoured the internet for which Texas beach was the best without too much distance.  We settled on Port Aransas.  It's just south of Corpus Christi, Texas.  I found a wonderful 3 bedroom condo at the Sandpiper.  Their website listed which units were available and had a virtual tour of every unit, which is important since you are actually renting from the condo owner.  We picked out particular unit because it had been remodeled in the fall. 

I didn't take many pictures, but here is one of the bathroom. 

and the master bedroom

view from the balcony

Now, on to the beach pictures:

walkway from the condo to the beach

cactus on the beach

Awww, sweet Hubby!

Mom and Dad on the beach

L loved the water

sand castle

My two mermaids

J feeding the seagulls

seagull

We also happened to be at the beach for J's birthday so here is a shot of his favorite present:

Mario, of course.

We had a wonderful time at the beach.  It was still a little chilly, but it was GREAT!  I'm so thankful that my family had this time together, especially with grandparents!

Okay, I'm all done with vacation photos.  Next week, I promise to move on to something else. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

San Antonio Riverwalk

Now for my favorite part of vacation, the San Antonio Riverwalk.  Have you been there?  After a long soaking day at Sea World, we ran back to the hotel and changed clothesc cleaned up and set off to the River Walk.  You see, the weather was supposed to get bad that night - severe thunderstorms - so we figured we would go eat at The Riverwalk just in case the weather was too bad the next day. 

We parked downtown.  I had seen so many pictures of The Riverwalk, and especially of the restaurants with the colorful umbrellas.  This is Casa Rio. 

Y'all know I love me some Mexican food, right?  This place was amazing!  Best Mexican food EVER!  We sat under the bridge you can see on the right side of the photo.  C fed the ducks the whole time we were eating, the river boats floated by, the kids were well behaved, it was wonderful!  Then, it started to rain just as we were finishing.  We paid and walked as fast as we could to the car, which luckily was only a block away.  By the time we drove the 8 miles back to the hotel, it was hailing.  We had crazy bad thunderstorms and were under a tornado watch for several hours.  Luckily the tornado that hit Bexar County that night, missed our hotel. 

The next morning, the weather had cleared and we went back to the River Walk.  I was so excited to be able to ride in the river boats and take the tour of the historic river.  It was absolutely gorgeous!

Casa Rio from the river boat

Did you know that San Antonio was settled by mostly Mexican and German?  Really?  German?  I had no idea.  That church in the background is German, I think. 

This is a stage on the river where they have concerts.  The audience sits on stone bleachers on the other side of the river.  Cool, huh? 

This is a tiny island in the river.  It's not much bigger than my van.  We were told that it's supposed to be good luck to get married here under that big old cypress tree.  They have around 350 weddings here a year.  WOW!  That's a lot of weddings!

Ben Milam cypress tree, the largest and oldest on the Riverwalk.  Texas soldier rallied troops to fight against the Mexican army and was shot by a sniper that was in this tree.  You can read more about it here. 

Isn't that pretty?  Know what I loved the most?  All the cute little restaurants all along the Riverwalk.  Saltgrass Steakhouse, Chili's, Rainforest Cafe, etc., all lined up along the river.  There was so much more character than the stand alone restaurants around here.  So, so pretty.  Hubby thought it was funny that I was so excited about the restaurants.  What can I say?  I love food and I've got the backside to prove it.

This is our River Guide, Alejandro.  He was awesome.

So, you wanna see the Alamo?  Yeah, me too.  I didn't realize that it was just smack dab in the middle of town and there wouldn't be much parking.  We had already loaded the car when we headed to the Alamo. 

So, we drove by.  I refused to pay another $10 for parking AGAIN.  So, we headed to the beach.  I'll show you those pictures tomorrow.  They are my favorite pictures from the trip. 

Happy Wednesday bloggy friends!

Vacation, Part 1 (Photo Heavy)

So, Spring Break is over, but I can honestly say that this is the best Spring Break I've had in a very long time!  I know my kiddos needed a break from school, but for the first time in twenty-something years, so did I! 

We haven't had a family vacation in eight years, which was two kids ago.  I have friends that travel constantly, but we just never seem to have the money to travel.  This year I told Hubby it was my top priority to take the kids on vacation.  I have such fond memories of family vacations and it broke my heart that my kids didn't have those memories.  So, we decided it would be more budget friendly to go on Spring Break instead of going during the summer months, not to mention less crowded and cooler. 

Because J loves sharks, dolphins and marine life in general, we decided Sea World in San Antonio would be the ideal place to take him.  L, loves to play in the sand and loves to be in the water so we decided the second leg of our trip had to be the beach.  Because L is autistic and therefore, very unpredictable, my awesome parents volunteered to go with us just in case he freaked out or had a major meltdown. 

The kiddos in the van, all packed up and ready to go. 

We were in the car about eleven hours the first day.  We hit traffic in Waco and moved at a snail's pace for an hour and a half.  UGH!  We finally arrived in San Antonio about 7:30, five minutes behind my parents.  What a relief!

After a good night's sleep, we got up and headed for Sea World.  I hadn't been to Sea World since I was about ten years old so I was just as excited as the kids.  When we arrived it was very cloudy and there was a chance of rain.  Guess what I didn't bring on vacation?  Jackets.  So, were a little chilly.  First things first, the shows. 

Sea Lion Show

Shamu Killer Whale Show

Beluga Whale and Dolphin Show

The Beluga Whale and Dolphin Show had technical difficulties so the cancelled the show after a few minutes.  Hubby was very disappointed.  The rest of us were ready to get to the rides.  E insisted on riding the kids rides first. 

Let's take a closer look at that, shall we?

Yep, that's C, holding on for dear life......on the kiddee ride. 

J was so excited to have his picture taken. 

After a quick lunch, we were off to our favorite ride, Atlantis.  E was especially excited.  Everybody loved it, except for the boys.  They didn't want to ride so they waited at the bottom.

 

They were soaked, but absolutely loved it!  After this we had twenty minutes to take J to see the sharks.  He had been begging and pleading and bugging the crap out of us waiting patiently all day to see them. 

Cool, huh?  Unfortunately they had already closed the building and they opened it up just for us to run through, and I do mean run.  My mom and E had stopped to buy a giant lollipop so they missed the sharks completely. 

So, that was Sea World.  Later in the week I'll share my favorite part of our trip. 

Do y'all kind of feel like you've been invited over to your neighbors to look at their boring vacation pictures or slide show?  Sorry about that.  It won't hurt my feelings if you don't want to look. 

Later bloggy friends!

Spring Randomness

Man, it's been a crazy last few weeks.  This is the first week in six weeks that I haven't had at least one person sick.  We have passed around strep and a virus and E contributed an ear infection to the mix.  L thought he would be different and throw in a little Hand, Foot, Mouth Coxsackie virus.  UGH!  I am SICK of being SICK!  I am tried of trips to the doctor and strips to the pharmacy.  I am ready for a break!  Luckily Spring Break is next week.  WOO HOO!  So excited to have a break for those sweet germy kids at school! 

I did manage to get an outfit made for a friend of mine for her little girl's birthday party.  She sent me this picture of a party table she found on Pinterest. 

Isn't that pretty?  Love it!  You can find the original picture here at Kara's Party Ideas.  Anyway, the colors for the party are aqua and pink (LOVE!).  I sent her some fabric ideas and this is what we came up with.

Oh, how I love the dots!  This fabric line is adorable.  It's Children at Play by Michael Miller.  So stinkin' cute! 

So, in other news, my oldest artsy crafsy child was entered in a Youth Art Show by her art teacher.  Unfortunately, she didn't win, but I still couldn't be more proud. 

See all of those little dots?  She used a whole punch to punch out the dots and glued them all on.  It took her FOREVER!

What else is going on?  It seems winter just pretty much skipped us altogether.  It was 80 degrees here yesterday.  WOW!  I cannot even imagine how bad the mosquitos are going to be this year.  And in other crappy spring news, I'm still fat.  Gosh, I hate that!  I've been too busy to even make it to the gym the past few weeks.  I have been watching what I eat.  Unfortunately, I've been watching myself eat pizza and cheese dip and tacos.  So not good for my backside.  I've got to get back on Livestrong.....right after Spring Break.  I deserve an award for The Best Procrastinator.  I think I need some fashion inspiration.  I'm sure that would help.

Happy Thursday, bloggy friends!!!