Spring Break 2009

We had a great spring break trip last week. Not exactly what we expected in every way, but it was fun and we had a great time anyway. We decided to drive to San Antonio and take the kids to Sea World, the Alamo, the Riverwalk, and the Zoo. I checked the weather a couple different times, as well as the hotel confirmation had the weather predictions for the week. It said it would rain on Wed.(the day we would be driving), but the rest of the week would be sunny and in the mid to high 80's. Perfect! So, I packed shorts, t-shirts & sunscreen. We did wear long pants & take a light jacket for the first day, because it was a little bit cold Wednesday morning when we left Bentonville at 6 a.m.

Neil found out that he had an international conference call that he had to be on Wednesday morning at 6:30 a.m., so I drove the first couple hours, while he was taking care of business from his cell phone. Kind of a bummer, and he did have to take several other emergency calls while we were in San Antonio, but that's just part of the job sometimes (it's still worth it).

The kids were great on the drive. They watched videos, drew in their notebooks, had snacks, napped a little, sang songs, and Clay kept asking "NOW how much more minutes?!" about every 15 minutes, for the first several hours. And Jonah, our little munch mouth, was asking for food about every half hour. You'd think we never feed that kid! And we had some very funny conversations with the kids. Those are some of the things I love about road trips. :)

We got to the hotel in San Antonio around dinner time, so after checking in, we grabbed some dinner, and then headed to the pool to go swimming with the kids. It was an outdoor pool, but I assumed it would be heated. The weather outside was overcast, but warm. Well, the pool was FREEZING!! There was NO WAY I was going to go in. But Neil, being the good sport, and great Daddy that he is, jumped in along with the kids, and they had a great time, while I stayed nice & warm & dry by the side of the pool!

That night we got everyone situated in bed (PJ & Jonah in one bed, Tessa & Clay in the fold-out bed (in the couch), and Neil and I in the other bed). Well, one thing about sleeping in a hotel with 4 kids, is there really isn't much SLEEPING. There is wiggling, pulling of the covers, whispering, giggling, talking in their sleep, getting up to go the the bathroom a LOT, and up early to watch the Disney Channel. Neil and I were laughing the first night, when PJ started talking in his sleep and exclaimed, "That's TRAMOLICIOUS!" We gave him a hard time the rest of the trip about it. We're still not quite sure what "tramolicious" is, but he was pretty excited about it. And Jonah kept mumbling stuff and asking questions in his sleep too. Funny kids!

So, Thursday morning we got up and had a quick breakfast at the hotel (they had a nice continental breakfast with waffles, toast, boiled eggs, cereal, oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, etc.) Then we headed to Sea World! We all had on shorts & t-shirts, and although it was a bit cool and overcast, we left our jackets in the car, because the weather reports said it would be 88 degrees & sunny. WRONG AGAIN!

At about 9:30, they opened the gates, so we went to see the "World Famous Clydesdales" first. Tessa was excited, because she LOVES horses. They were really pretty horses. Then we made our way over to the dolphins. We were even able to pet some. They were really amazing. Well, by then, it was starting to rain lightly, but I figured it was only a little rain. It can't ruin our fun, and hopefully it just means that it won't be as crowded. We walked throught some of the exhibits to see fish, sharks, penguins, tide pools, etc. After that, we headed over to the 4-D pirate movie (the rain was getting harder all this time). The movie was pretty funny, but kind of freaked Clay out a little (because it's one of those that feels like things are crawling on your or squirting you and stuff like that), so I had to take him to the back of the theater and just watch it from there.

Then we headed to the seal & otter show (the little comedy act that's so cute). By now the rain was really comming down hard, and there was thunder and lightning. I was beginning to think that the weather men really have NO IDEA what they are talking about most of the time! :) We waited...and waited. They postponed the show by 5 minutes (3 times), before finally saying that the show was going to be cancelled for the safety of the animals and people involved. So, we got the kids a quick snack and hurried to try & catch the Shamu show (it was covered, so we figured we'd at least get to see that one), and hope that the weather would clear up so we could watch the other one later.

When we got to the Shamu stadium, the kids insisted that they wanted to sit up on the front row, so they could get wet (like we weren't wet enough from the rain already). The last time we went to Sea World, PJ was about 4 years old, and was so upset that he didn't get wet from Shamu, so we decided to let them get wet! And BOY, DID THEY GET WET!! They were SOAKED from head to toe, and clear to their underwear! They loved it! After that, we decided that we'd go all out and have the lunch buffet with Shamu (by the pool). Well, again, we waited, and waited and waited in the rain, with the kids shivering, and huddling together. I'm sure we were quite the sight. Other people who had ponchos or coats or blankets, all nice and dry and warm, looking at our sorry looking family, blue lips and chattering teeth, thinking to themselves..."WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!" Well, after paying good money to eat by Shamu, and waiting in line for a half hour, they finally informed us that the only tables available were in the rain! So, we decided to get our money back. And by then, our kids were getting so cold and looking so miserable, that I wanted to try to get a rain check to come back tomorrow. Thank goodness they were giving them out! So, we headed back to the car, turned on the heater full blast, dried off our dripping wet clothes, and drove back to the hotel. After changing back into our ONLY pair of long pants that we brought, we FINALLY (around 2:30) were able to get warm and went to have lunch at Carinos Italian restaurant. YUM! Of course by the time we were done, around 3:30, the sun was finally out and the sky was sunny and blue. Funny! :)

So, since we had a few hours left to go do something, and our plans for Friday were now changed, we decided to just drive to the San Antonio temple (Neil and I were going to try to take turns going to a session, but with their limited schedule, because it's a small temple, that wasn't going to happen now). But we went to the temple and walked around the temple grounds with the kids and bought them all a new CTR ring from the distribution center across the parking lot. It was still a great day despite our change of plans.

So, Friday we got to go BACK to Sea World again (for free), and not only see the seal & otter show this time, we also got to pet the dolphins again, see the dolphin and acrobat show, and see the Shamu show again, and this time it was MUCH more impressive! (The day before the whales weren't really cooperating very well, because of the weather, so Friday it was GREAT!) It's so amazing what they can train those huge animals to do. They are so beautiful! The weather was warm & sunny, and we got to enjoy actually walking around and seeing all the other animals in the warm sunshine. Perfect!

We ended up leaving Sea World around 3:00 or so, and headed to the Alamo and the Riverwalk for the rest of the day. Those were both pretty interesting to see also, although at the Riverwalk, having such a narrow walkway (only about 2 people wide), with a drop off into the river, with no railing, and 4 kids to watch, made me a little nervous.

Saturday morning, we got up and headed to the San Antonio Zoo for a few hours. It is a smaller zoo and older. We were a little disappointed in it, but still had fun walking around with the kids and looking at the animals. After that, we drove to Dallas to spend the night, so our drive home on Sunday wouldn't be quite so long. After we checked into our hotel there, we relaxed for a little while then headed up the road to the Outback Steakhouse for some yummy food. It looked pretty crowded, but they said it was about a 20-25 minute wait, so we figured we could handle that. Well, it ended up being about an hour long wait, but the kids were patient (more patient that I was feeling!) But we didn't want fast food again! The funny thing is that we spent the same amount on dinner there (for prime rib, grilled chicken, and pasta, etc.) as we did for chicken nuggets and hot dogs at Sea World for lunch. You've gotta love amusement parks, huh?!

Anyway, It was a 10-hour drive from Bentonville to San Antonio, and we got there and back home again, without any problems. And we LOVE having a GPS! It makes the driving much easier, not having to try to follow mapquest directions and keep checking a map! There were only a couple times coming back home where it kept telling us to "turn left! turn left!" when we couldn't TURN LEFT! And Neil was verbally abusive to the poor thing. But once we finally turned left, it calmed down, and we got where we needed to go. ha ha ha! :)

We had a GREAT time and created a lot of fun memories that hopefully our kids will remember for a very long time. That's what family vacations are all about...making fun memories, even if things don't turn out quite how you expected. :)