December 2009 Texas Vacation

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Above is a slideshow of our vacation. It really was a vacation of a lifetime, and I will try not to go into too many details because it would take forever! We really enjoyed the road trip portion as well, all 2,400 miles! The first day we trekked to Lubbock, an 8 hr drive, turned to 10 hours. And then we took off first thing in the morning to head to San Antonio, another 7 hour drive, where we stayed four nights. We stayed at a hotel right on the Riverwalk in Downtown. The Riverwalk was beautiful and amazing. It has shops and restaurants and boat tours... we did the tour right away which was great to get to know the area and history a little. We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe, a 100+ year old Mexican Restaurant and the Rainforest Cafe. We went to see the Alamo and Ripleys Believe it or Not Museum and a wax museum, all within walking distance to our hotel. We did a LOT of walking in San Antonio, but it was SO worth seeing all that we did!

We also went to Sea World two days, which wasn't as nice as Sea World Orlando, but great nonetheless. The boys LOVED a roller coaster called the Steal Eel, which goes 65mph! We went back the second day to do a behind the scenes tour of the dolphins, which OF COURSE was the highlight of the whole trip. We got to interact with them, touch and pet them and feed them. We also got to check out the sting rays, a shark, sea lions and beluga whales as well. It was a incredible. One afternoon we made it to Fiesta Texas, which was not great but okay. The boys really dug the roller coasters there too!

Then we drove 3 short hours to Port Aransas, Texas. A small town right on the Gulf of Mexico. With some research, I found a sweet deal on a 3 bedroom beach condo, since it was off season. The owners of the specific condo that we reserved, ended up "overruling" us to allow their guests to stay there instead, which made us mad... for all of 2 minutes until we walked into the 11th floor (top floor with vaulted ceilings) and saw the breathtaking, wall to wall views. We worried about the kids falling on the balcony (who wouldn't!) but they did great when we did out there. The condo was spacious and the kids had fun running around and spreading their wings a little. It was beyond perfect. We took a few small trips to the town to eat, and get food from the small grocery store for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Only the first day was nice enough for the kids to get WET on the beach, but we made the best of our time and took many short trips down to the beach. Christmas Day proved to be a bit nicer and we played frizbee and football and searched for treasures for a good 3 hours. We also got to drive on the beach! We drove up the coast to the actual PORT in Port Aransas, and then drove back down again. A nice couple stopped and offered to take pictures of us all together, and you'll see the pic in the slideshow.

It took us three days to get back home, and although we stayed in small towns/cities, we made some great memories. In Abeline we laughed at the HUGE and insanely busy Wal Mart, and at at a tortilla factory where a worker thought Mason was cute watching them make tortillas through a viewing window and she gave us some fresh tortillas and OMG they were amazingly good. The Amarillo hotel we stayed in was old, but nice with an indoor pool that the kids relished. The hotel had a TGIFridays right in the hotel and so of course we ate there and had a few drinks and watched some sports on TV. ;) Luckily we dodged a big storm and had dry roads almost the entire trip. We picked Mattie up from the boarder before getting home because we missed her so much! Only when we got home, we realized that we came home to an even bigger mess than what we'd left to. That story will come later... dum-dum, dummmm. ;)