San Antonio

Ahhh....I need to get our San Antonio trip finished. So here we go......San Antonio is BEAUTIFUL!! I hadn't realized how much I was missing the big city until we got there. Brydon teased me about being a city girl now, and it is true. I do love the big cities! After our day at Sea World, we spent the next day exploring San Antonio.  First we checked out the base there. Lackland is the Basic Training base and it was really neat to see. I was bummed that Brydon doesn't want to be stationed there. Then we went downtown to check out the Alamo and the River Walk. While we were there we saw a Ripley's Believe It or Not and decided to check that out as well. It was a super fun day and I can't wait to go back to there. San Antonio is very romantic, easy to navigate, cheap, and everyone is super kind. Believe me after you have been to Philadelphia and Washington, DC these things are very important. We actually got to park a block from the Alamo in covered parking for $10 for the WHOLE Day! It was a great city to spend time exploring together as a family.

I am so excited about these two pictures!  We got TWO, NICE family photos in front of the Alamo on the FIRST try!!  After 5+ attempts at this in front of the Liberty Bell and many pictures in front of Mt. Rushmore this is truly a miracle.  We have a family tradition of hanging up pictures of our family at a place that symbolizes the states we have lived in.  So we have a family picture at in front of the Delicate Arch at Arches National Park in Utah, Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota, and the Liberty Bell in Pennsylvania.  We thought the Alamo would be a great place to symbolize Texas and we got it!!  Now I can add it to our wall.  Yep Caleb is just barely 5 years old and we have lived in 4 states and we just recently joined the military.  Our wall may become quite large.  

The Alamo is free to visit and is really beautiful.  It was interesting to learn more about Texas history.  Obviously Caleb wasn't thrilled about spending lots of time learning about history but he did enjoy parts of it. 

Caleb was really excited about seeing the River Walk.  We had heard about these great boat tours and he couldn't wait to ride in a boat.  We even had to skip lunch because he wanted the boat tour first.  The area was more beautiful than I could have imagined. 

My super Handsome Boys!!

Our Family on the Boat Tour

The Intricate Architecture

Mexican Food is truly best in San Antonio.  I love Mexican food and it was amazing.  For dessert we had ice cream and Caleb obviously thought it was pretty good!

Caleb likes to take pictures now and is getting pretty good.  We got to get these nice photos of just the two of us.

It was a great day and we were sad to have to drive home.  Caleb found this great hat to remember San Antonio and we are all excited to go back someday!

Lots of Playtime in Sea World

When we first entered Sea World, Caleb informed us that he wanted to ride a roller coaster.  He wasn't tall enough to ride the large roller coasters so we had him start off with the small Shamu Roller Coaster.  He hasn't been on many rides, and liked this one but he wasn't quite as excited for the big roller coasters afterwards., but couldn't wait for all the fun water rides!

The "Shamu Express"

Caleb was big enough for the "Journey to Atlantis".  At first he was thrilled but as we were strapping him in, he wasn't so sure this would be fun.  At one point on the ride we did go downhill, backwards and he started to cry.  Fornunately they sent us down the splash hill forward so he stopped crying until he starting screaming with all of us.  It was really fun to do a ride as a family but Caleb has informed us that he needs to be bigger to ever do that again.  We could have bought a picture of us on the ride and Caleb's face was great.  He did look pretty terrified!  But we were proud of him for trying it out.

Sesame Streets "Bay of Play" was really fun and was a great stop in the middle of the hot afternoon.  It was nice to cool down and just play.

This was Caleb's favorite ride and we got to do it a couple of times, the "Rio Loco".  We got so wet as our whole family ended up getting drenched by the waterfall.  It was a fun rafting ride and so fun to get to hang out together as a family. 

As they say "The Family that Plays Together, Stays Together" and we had so much fun playing together!  I truly believe that saying is true and it was so fun to make lasting memories together and just laugh and play!  Sometimes you really do just need to Play!

The Shows of Sea World

One of the highlights of Sea World is the amazing Marine Life Shows.  They are truly breathtaking and are so much fun.  We were so excited to see the Shamu show "One Ocean".  Killer whales are so beautiful!  We got there early so we could get a good seat in the splash zone and it was so worth it.  I am such a baby and started choking up throughout the show.  It is one of those childhood wished come true and I was emotional!  Plus the show was just that magical!  The pictures just don't do it justice but they aren't too bad.  I was sure glad we had our waterproof camera (I love that thing), because I didn't have to hide it and could just snap away while we got wet!

Love that mug!  He was just captivated!

After we got a big splash!

Mommy and baby performing.  They were Caleb's favorite and were so cute!! 

We could watch it over and over!!

The next show we saw was "Azul" and featured dolphins, beluga whales, synchronized swimming, acrobatics, and divers.  It was stunning!  They really know how to put on a show at Sea World!

You have to look closely to see the girl flying through the air.

We actually go to see this show twice and it was just as amazing the second time.  It is so fun to see the trainers with the animals.  They seem to truly love what they do and love showing off these amazing animals!

 The last show was a bit more comical and featured a mystery.  It was the "Cannery Row Caper" and was so hilarious!!  We couldn't believe what the Sea Lions could do and the walrus was the best! 

While we were waiting for the show to begin, we got to watch this funny little comedy piece.  This man was trying to find his true love and he crawled through the crowd to bug this "not too thrilled" woman sitting right beside me.  He was so funny and the program was great!

This walrus was huge and did amazing things.  Our favorite was when he did sit ups.  The poor walrus turned out to actually be the fish thief!

 

So FUN!!!