San Antonio

One thing I forgot to write in my Padre post: When Gabriel had just turned one, we took him to Padre for the first time. Halfway through that trip he started walking on his own. This trip, Joel's constant stream of baby babble started turning into actual words. So one kid walking and one kid talking makes for some pretty powerful memories of a place! Joel woke us up the morning we headed to San Antonio with a loud, "APPLE!".

I have to brag about how well these boys did in the car on our trip. We brought Gabriel's practice drum so he could play in the car. He made up countless songs, music and lyrics, from that back seat. All of them Rockin, of course! Joel is so well trained that when he started to get sleepy, he would just quietly hum to himself until he fell asleep. You just can't ask for better kids than that.

Gabriel begged us to stop at the crazy, quirky, giant souvenir place on the highway back to reality. He didn't want to go in, just see the King Kong up close. I love the picture below. The sky is beautiful and it looks like a real dinosaur.

The trip was exhausting. We could see our hotel in San Antonio but couldn't get to it (what is with that crazy highway system?) Went to Chili's for dinner, Target for diapers and then tumbled into bed.

We got up to head to Sea World in the morning. I was surprised at the size of the crowd at that time of year until I realized they were doing their Halloween thing.

Here's Gabriel feeding a seal lion, which is in the picture before this one. We saw the silly show with the otter and the walrus, then made our way over to the Killer Whales.

They take my breath away.

Penguins! Joel had fallen asleep and was getting really banged up in his stroller, so Jav carried him for awhile. I thought it was so cute that when we got to the Penguin house, he sat in a cool (albeit fishy-smelling) corner with his baby asleep on his shoulder, just like a daddy penguin would have.

One complaint I have about Sea World (besides the ridiculous prices for everything) is the food selection is awful. How can a place like that not have anyplace that sells quesadillas or grilled cheese sandwiches? (The only two foods Joel will eat out). We decided to leave to find someplace we could all eat, even though we could have stayed much longer. We detoured through the Sesame Street amusement park on the way out. Jav took Gabriel on his first roller coaster trip. And Joel and I stood in a long line to ride the Elmo merry-go-round. He was sweaty, cranky, and hungry, but still managed to shout out "Melmo!" everytime he saw him.

Two boys who have had enough of Sea World!

That night we went for an early swim before dinner in the hotel swimming pool. It wasn't heated and was REALLY cold. I told Jav that Joel would probably scream bloody murder if we put him in that water. He proceeded to make a liar out of me and splashed and swam around for about 45 minutes. I guess Sea World inspired him to swim like a fish. Gabriel and I had to get out because our teeth wouldn't stop chattering. Wimps!

That night was a big Ranger game, so we ordered pizza to the room and had a pizza picnic on the floor. It was a great ending to our fantastic, memory-making trip.

Now, I have to try to get caught up on everything else that's happened in October and November.