A few days before we left, Olivia mentioned on the way home from school that she wrote about our trip in her journal. She said "I wrote that we are going to Austin for Spring Break and I don't know what we are going to do but I know we will not go swimming." I gently corrected her that we were going to San Antonio and told her the hotel did, in fact, have a heated pool. I'm pretty sure I could have just gotten a hotel with a heated pool in Houston because she only talked about for the next few days and told everyone we saw about it!
So, when we arrived in town late Thursday night and the receptionist told us about the burgers, smores and movie playing that night at the pool, she basically threw on her bathing suit and left us in the dust. (I will say it was FREEZING this trip and she claims she was warm in the pool but neither Matt nor I would agree to join her!).
On Friday morning we headed to Sea World.
First up was the Sea Lion/Otter show. It was pretty cute and Eric loved it when they jumped out of the water on cue!
We went to a few more exhibits that neither of the kids seemed particularly interested in.
Because what they both wanted to do was hang out at the Bay of Play Sesame Street exhibit.
Eric really wanted nothing to do with the characters when they were up close but every time as they walked away, he would yell loudly at them "Bye! Bye!"
We went back to the hotel for a nap/quiet time and then headed downtown for dinner on the River Walk.
The next morning we checked out Kiddie Park, this old-timey amusement park. It was sort of weird but the kids loved it. They had tons of rides that Eric could ride and a huge game section for Olivia
And before we left we let them each get a snack. Olivia picked a bag of chips. Eric immediately took one look at the selections and yelled "POP!" (lollipop). The man behind the counter said "Its $3, is that okay?" Clearly other parents are not as big of suckers as we are. I looked at Matt and he shrugged and said "Oh my gosh. When I was little it would have made my whole year to get a lollipop this big." So we got it. And, Eric loved it - wrestling it away from him at naptime was no easy feat!
After another nap/quiet time we decided to go more low-key with a trip to Duck Pond - this great little park we found with tons of ducks to feed and great playground equipment.
There were the tiniest little ducklings swimming by their mamma that Eric quickly named as "Rheric duck!"
The next morning we ventured down to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. Despite the fact that Aunt Jennie and Harris recently went and raved about them, my crew did not seem that excited about going. But, I pushed them and was so glad I did. It was probably one of the best things we did.
There were tons of kid-friendly areas and activities for them to explore, climb on and do.
And that day was St. Patrick's Day, so we headed downtown after naps to watch the River Walk Boat Parade. We lucked out by getting reservations at a restaurant on the River and a table with a great view.
I think these guys had the best time. We actually decided to head home late that night instead of early the next morning and it was such an interesting car ride. Eric was super irritated to be in his car seat so I squeezed myself in the backseat for about half the trip. We then stopped to let him get out because it was about to be dark and we figured a fresh diaper might help him fall asleep. Well, once we hit the road again, Olivia quickly told us that she was tired and wanted to go to sleep. We all took the opportunity to do our usual nighttime routine with Eric (prayers, song, etc) --- again, in a desperate effort to get him to sleep. Then we turned on white noise through our phones. Olivia was all ready but Eric was having none of it. He would yell "Yah Yah! Yah Yah!" and when she finally answered he would just say "Hi!" This went on a few times before Matt and I intervened and told her she could just ignore him. He then switched to mamma and dadda but got no real response from us either. He was quiet for a while and we hoped he was falling asleep. But then we heard him cough and Olivia opened her eyes and said "Eric, are you okay?" He said "Yes!" And..of course..he then proceeded to fake cough 5 more times to get her attention. Finally she really fell asleep and didn't answer him anymore. He was quiet for probably 20 minutes in which time Matt and I turned a podcast on, assuming he had fallen asleep but then we just heard this little voice in the back seat say "Yah Yah?"
The two of them had a little routine down during this trip in which they would try to avoid nap/bedtime for Eric.
And that's a wrap on Spring Break 2019!
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