San Antonio: Waterparks, RiverWalk, Tarheels and Tantrums

I have a week full of projects to finish up and blog about, but for now I wanted to get a little personal and share with you some fun pictures from our trip. Enjoy…

We are back from San Antonio, Texas!!! We had a blast, but I couldn’t be happier to be back home and in a routine again.  Our trip was filled from start to finish with activities. You see, my husband’s idea of a vacation is an action packed, every minute filled, no down time, walk a million miles, see-it-all kind of deal. My idea of a vacation always involves a beach, sand, and sleep. I am so glad we are opposites because although I am always so resistant to “his” vacations in the end, I always have so much fun and experience the most amazing places on Earth.

If you are wondering, Jude did survived his first ever plane ride. He did really well except for the fact that he threw one massive fit as the plane descended into Dallas. During this time he somehow grabbed a pamphlet from the chair and launched it at the man next to us. It hit the man so hard in his face that it knocked his glasses off. Poor guy, I felt so bad. And that’s Jude, up and down all the time. I call him my Sweet and Sour child.

So, this was basically how our whole trip was, a series of great moments and traumatic pitfalls. But as always we had a blast.

The Riverwalk

We were lucky enough to get a great rate at the Grand Hyatt Hotel right on San Antonio’s famous Riverwalk. The hotel was gorgeous and had direct access to the Riverwalk. If you have never heard of the Riverwalk, I’ll try my best to explain.  A river runs below the city streets of downtown San Antonio. On both sides of the river there are long twining sidewalks that go on for what seems like forever. Restaurants, shops, hotels, stages, bridges, vendors, and more, line the sidewalks. The Riverwalk has a European flair, but also has tons of Hispanic influence in the architecture. River boats run constantly giving informational tours and they are a great way to see the majority of the Riverwalk fairly quickly. You never know what you might see like the little girl we spotted in the top left photo with balloons tied in her hair. Or the stage in the bottom left photo which has been in many movies, do you know which one? It stared, Sandra Bullock.

 The Alamo

From the Riverwalk we walked to The Alamo. There was a short line to enter the Alamo and the cost was free. My husband was very surprised at how small the actual size of the Alamo was. I was kind-of surprised that it is smack dab in the middle of down-town. But then again, the more places I go I find that the most amazing historical places are in the most un-expected locations. Although the Alamo was small the gardens are large and gorgeous. You could spend an hour walking around the grounds. I will admit though out of all the missions this one was extremely busy and in comparison to the others, there was not as much to take in. I know, I know, it is the Alamo though.

After we toured the Alamo I was exhausted, after all, we had been up since 3am. We decided to catch a horse carriage and take it back to the hotel. Unfortunately, my husband left out the word GRAND when he told the driver the name of our hotel. So instead of going to the Grand Hyatt, she took us to the Hyatt. Now anybody knows when you are downtown most buildings look similar when you are up close to them especially hotels owned by the same company. Needless to say, $60.  and 1 hour later we were not at our hotel. We were walking across downtown San Antonio. At that point I was so delirious I didn’t even care anymore.

Sea World

Can you tell from the pictures that we were actually at SeaWorld? Oh, you can’t? Well, we actually did see a whale, oh and maybe a penguin. It was honestly so hot and Jude had no interest in the rest of the park, that we spent the majority of the day in the water park area, which is sponsored by Sesame Street. The Bay of Play was a lot of fun and kept us all cool. It also turned my feet completely black. I don’t know what happened. I wore my Rainbow brand flipflops which I always wear and when I took them off it looked like I took wood stain and painted the bottom of my feet. What’s worse is that I had spent all this time before the trip giving myself a DIY pedicure, which I never do, and it was ruined. I had to go out and buy a pumice stone and scrub my feet at the hotel for about an hour. I looked like a tried and true Tarheel. (sorry honey, he’s a Duke fan) (We are from NC originally.)

My husband did go the extra mile and reserved us a special dinner date with the whales. We had an all you can eat buffet, an up close viewing of two killer whales and a question and answer session with trainers. The middle/left picture is from our lunch. I hate to say it but I was not really all that impressed. The food was pretty decent but the overall experience was lacking.

Overall, if I had never been to SeaWorld before, I would have been super disappointed, because we saw no shows and basically no animals. Why, you ask?  Well, because Jude has no attention span at this point. However, I have been to SeaWorld in Orlando and had an awesome experience there.

The Missons

Oh boy, it was hot the day we decided to go to all the Missions. They are all not within walking distance contrary to what we were told. We are now learning not to trust what people at the hotel say about what is within walking distance and what is not, because this has happened to us before. Luckily my hubby trusted his gut and we took the car. The missions are hundreds of years old and are amazing. They are little towns that centered around the church. Jude tried to steal money from a wishing well and you can see in the picture above and below it looks as though he may be praying for forgiveness. All is forgiven, my wild child.

I have so much more to tell ya’ll but for now I will let you soak this in…..

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