Beautiful Day for a River Ride

This Summer my family will have lived in San Antonio, TX  for 4 years (I think) and we have maybe gone to the Riverwalk once since that time.  Before we moved to San Antonio, this was our Vacation spot.  My Husband and I came here for our anniversary, Summer Vacations with the Kids and once just for the fun of it (of course that was before kids....before plans had to be made.....before 5 suitcases had to be packed)  We just jumped on 1-10 and drove here with no clothes packed or anything.....We didn't even know we were going to do it until it happened.  We were just suppose to go to Bass Pro Shops in Katy, but being that we didn't have anyone calling us Mom and Dad at the time, what's the harm in taking a spontaneous trip.  Of course, we failed to remember it was the same night that the Spurs were playing for the Championship and had won by the time we were in the middle of the chaos downtown, but at that time in our lives people everywhere, traffic, being in a hurry and complete Mayhem in the Streets was not a concern to us.  Wow, I really rambled there.  I was daydreaming out loud.  I almost forgot how much fun we had together and how easy things use to be.   We had a lot of fun back in the day before the responsibilities of a family came along.  Don't get me wrong, we still have fun....just a different kind of. fun.  Kid Fun, I guess you could say.  O.k.seriously, I am diagnosing myself with ADD.  I'm totally off track here.   Moving on........Right now in San Antonio, there is a lot going on.  Fiesta is a huge event around here and my Husband being in the Beer Business, stays really busy this time of year.  I'm not complaining.....there are a lot of guys that work for his company that work 12 days straight from early morning until late at night during Fiesta time.  Their wives literally become single parents for 2 weeks.   Anyway...back on track Jeri........Greg is working today so I decided the kids and I would go do something that we normally wouldn't do.  Let me rephrase that.....that we normally wouldn't do with Greg.  He's not big on getting the kids out in crowded areas where you are forced to walk on the edge of the River, but  I woke up today in a, "I want to go do something different mood".  So, we headed to the Riverwalk.  Our plan was to go eat at the Rainforest Cafe.  Colton and Bailey hadn't been there since they were little and frankly didn't remember it and Kinley had never been there at all.  They were still amazed at the things they saw and I was happy because my "Big" kids were still little enough to get excited about a fake alligator laying in some water moving around and fake thunderstorms happening while we ate. 

Kinley would have been in this picture too except for the fact that she was behind me with her hands over her eyes and screaming.  Needless to say we snapped the picture and moved on quickly.

I'm really trying to take all of these simple moments in.  There will come a day when she won't want the kids menu and color sheet so for now I am going to enjoy the fact that she does.....and of course take pictures.

Kinley had a good time coloring too. 

My Sweet Boy.  I found out something new about him today.  We were on the third floor and he was nervous about walking up the stairs.  I'm not sure when this started, but suddenly he claims he is scared of heights.  This is the same kid that rode all of the Scary slides with me at Splashtown last year.  I hope he still agrees to be my slide riding buddy this Summer. 

I asked the Hostess to take our picture with all of the animals in the background.  It didn't exactly happen that way.  I guess I'll give her credit for getting half of the parrots tail in there.  I don't know if you can tell, but Colton was really nervous.  We were on a bridge/balcony/stairway on the second floor and he just wanted to get to the bottom (hence the get me out of here smile on his face)

After we were done eating, I promised the kids if it wasn't too expensive that we could take the riverboat tour.  I've always wanted to do it myself so they didn't really have to work hard to persuade me and they were so good in the restaurant that I didn't want our riverwalk adventure to end.

Here we are all ready for our Boat ride.  Look at that look on Colton's face.  He was already trying to figure out how he could get into a little mischief on this boat. Sometimes he reminds of Dennis the Menace and I'm Mr. Wilson.   After we started, he would nonchalantly  lay over the back of the boat and drag his hand in the water.  He thought he was being sneaky, but I knew what he was doing.  Normally,  I would probably be at my wits end by now and be telling him to get his hands back in the boat, but we really were having a Great Day so I decided to let it slide. 

Here's Miss Kinley cheesing it up for the camera.  She was suprisingly cooperative today. 
Notice Colton behind her.  Mission, get his hand into that water is underway. 

Colton was worried that Kinley was going to try and jump out of the boat so when she was around him, he stayed pretty close.  She would rotate between him and Bailey. 

I was trying to lean outside of the boat to get a picture of Kinley, but it didn't exactly work out.  However, for some reason I love this picture.

   The Boat tour was fun and a lot longer than I expected.  It was the perfect day for it.  It wasn't too hot, a little breeze blew every once in a while and it was fun to see everything that was going on.  It's hard to really look around when your walking with a little one in a stroller and looking back every few seconds to make sure that the other two are still walking and are not in the river.  I learned quite a bit on this tour....if your not into a little History, you might want to skip this part, but first let me give you a fun fact that I learned today on this tour.  Our Tour guide said that on average at least 13 people fall into the River per day.  I was actually kind of shocked by that, but then she added that most of those happen after 2am.  o.k...got it!!!!   Riverwalk, Alchohol....stumbling around and then bam, your in the river.  Is it bad that I kind of wish that I could see this happen?  Not to children of course, but I wouldn't mind getting a good laugh out of some drunken fool falling into the river at 2am.  O.k. now for the History.  Please understand, I'm not trying to bore you, but I do plan on turning this blog into a book one day for my Children and maybe, just maybe they might be interested in this stuff. 

Please excuse the angle of this picture.  By the time I decided I wanted to get a picture of it, we were right underneath it and quickly passing it by.  This is the best I could do.  This is the Nix Professional Building and it was built in 1931. It was the first Hospital built inside of a skyscraper and upon its completion was the largest and tallest hospital in the United States.   It was the first building with a parking garage, hospital beds and doctor's offices in the same facility.  The Riverwalk side of the building is cut off diagonally on the South wall, creating the illusion that the facing wall is one-dimensional.  Basically, it looks like it's flat and is going to fall right on top of you.  I thought it was pretty interesting that Carol Burnett and Oliver North were both born in this hospital. Hmmmm,
I thought I was going to go into more history, but I changed my mind so History lesson over.

o.k. I had to show the full illusion of this building so I went online and found a good picture. 
Here you go....Crazy right?

This is LaToya and the kids.  She was our river guide.  She was a lot of fun and had a lot of interesting things to say. 

After the River ride was over, we headed back towards the car, but first stopped into DQ for some slushies and water.  It was on the walk back and I figured why not end it on a Great Note!!!  My kids were probably wondering what had gotten into me.  Usually, when they ask for ice cream or slushies, the answer is no.  It's nice to see them get excited about the little things. 

Now we are home and I am ready to send the two girls to bed.  They are GROUCHY and tired. Kinley keeps pulling on my shirt and whining and suddenly smells like something crawled into her diaper and died. I really need to go change her.  Bailey is whiny and quite honestly being extremely annoying.  She keeps saying in the most annoying tearful voice, "My toe hurts sooooooo bad."  When I asked her why her toe hurts she says, "I think I chewed on it too much."  That's right, my seven year old chews on her toe nails.
 It's so gross!!!!  Her Daddy was a toe nail chewer as a child and if my My Mom wasn't reading this, I wouldn't volunteer the fact that apparently I was too.  I don't remember it, but she's got stories so I guess it's true.  See, there I go getting off track.  Colton is still bouncing off the walls and probably will be until I send him to bed where he will lay his head down and be asleep in 2 seconds flat.  How does someone go from going full speed ahead to lights out that fast?  Must be nice!   Anyway, I'm going to end this neverending blog with this.  I had a GREAT Memory making day with my kiddos.  It's days like this that remind me how lucky I am that God was gracious enough to give me three Healthy, fun loving, at times impossible to deal with kids and a sometimes too serious, but sometimes extremely silly and funny and sometimes impossible to deal with husband who  loves his Family and quite frankly works his butt off so that we can do fun things like this.  Thank you Honey for being who you are.  I sometimes lose sight of the big picture and don't tell you enough how much I love you and  appreciate everything that you do for us.  You ROCK!!!!!  Oh.....and I have a feeling by the noises that I'm hearing that Colton is destroying your Garage at this very moment.  I promise I will get it back in working order tomorrow morning.  Well that about does it.   Goodnight Friends and Family.  Thanks for hanging in there until the end of this post.  Until next time.......
 

Just some of my Week in pictures......

Kinley, right before she realized that we were at the Dentist.  This Sweet Smile didn't last long.

Kinley INSISTED she wear a black onesie that was too small and her Big Fluffy skirt to run errands.
When I say insisted, I mean she pulled it out of her closet and would not let me put anything else on her.  We were only going one place, so I said o.k.  We ended up meeting a friend at McDonald's and Kinley kept pulling her skirt up to her neck in the play area. 

Colton has decided he's into Comical shirts.  I think this shirt is pretty funny.  I'm not sure why he felt the need to put on the Roy Orbison glasses as we were walking out the door for School.  He's a weird kid and I love him. 

                                           Love my Little Yankee!!!!

We've got Spirit, Yes we Do!!!!!

Ready to Cheer on Bailey!!!

After Bailey's game, we went to a Mexican Food Restaurant which had very interesting surroundings.

Bailey finally decided it was time to learn to ride the bike that her Daddy bought her a few months ago. 

Greg got caught in a down pour while checking on his Brisket. 

I was already taking pics of the kids so I was happy that I got to get this pic too.

My Chunky Monkey playing in the rain.

Kinley received this sweet little outfit in the mail from her Aunt Mary. 

Thanks Aunt Mary!!!!!!

Well, that's all I've got.  It's been a Great Week!!  Until Next Time.....

My Little Cake Decorators

Every year Colton and Bailey's School puts on a School Carnival.  One of the ways they get cake donations for the cake walk is to have a cake decorating contest between all the grades.  Last year, neither kid cared anything about it, but this year Bailey decided that she wanted to decorate a cake and Colton soon followed behind her.  Normally, this is something that I would want to take over and do it myself, but what would I be teaching them by doing that?  I'm slowly learning that it's o.k. to let them do "projects" like these on their own.....well, not completely on their own.  I do supervise and occasionally help out when needed.  Bailey didn't really have any big ideas in mind, but she knew she wanted to say something about the School with her cake.  Colton on the other hand knew from the start what he wanted to do.  First he said that he wanted to do a Rodeo cake with Cowboys and Longhorns and tractors......You know, all of the things that would cost me a fortune.  I had to remind him that if his cake didn't win, then he would have to give up all of the things that he put on it because it would be donated to the cake walk.  (The Winners get to keep their cake.)  He settled for a farm cake.  We went to Hobby Lobby and found some wood cut outs for 67 cents a piece. 

Next we glued kabob sticks to the back of each one so we wouldn't have to stick the actual wood cut out down in the cake.  I say "we" because I did help out with this process.  The Kids are responsible for decorating the cake, not prepping the materials.

It was time for the decorating to begin.  Colton used Creme Cheese frosting to cover his cake.....but we weren't going for the snowy farm look so  he spray painted it with green frosting.

Now it was time to start putting the farm together.  He started with the White fence that we had glued a sun and a Rooster too.  I had to keep reminding myself that this was his project and he could put the animals wherever he wanted to.  Of course I would make suggestions, but he put them where he wanted and I thought he did a good job.

For the finishing touches, he squirted green frosting around the fence line and around all of the animals.  We were going for the grass was growing up around them look. 

 Here it is.  Colton's Farm and first Cake decorating project.

You can't see it from this picture, but he had a bucket in the middle with yellow sprinkles in it to make it look like feed.  Good Job Bubba :)

 Kinley had her first experience with licking the spatula

                                     and she really enjoyed it!!!!

 Next up, Bailey Girl!!!  Her cake was a White Funfetti cake with Vanilla frosting.

I think Kinley was a little overly excited in this picture. 

She knows there is going to be another spatula coming her way.

       Bailey decided she wanted her cake to say TPES (Timberwood Park Elementary School) Rocks.  Of course I had to step in at that point.  I wanted it to be legible so I wrote the words for her.
       Bailey has pretty handwriting, but I don't know how pretty it would have been on a cake.

                      She sprinkled each letter with a different color,

 and then she spray painted around the edges with purple food coloring and added a little confetti.
She was happy with it and so was I.

Unfortunately, neither of them won, but we went to the School Carnival and Bailey managed to win Colton's cake in the cake walk.  Her cake was already gone by the time we got there.  Nobody got their feelings hurt and it was fine with them that they didn't win.  Actually, it didn't phase them one bit.  It didn't bother any of us one bit to devour Colton's cake when we got home either. 
                                       It was Yummy!!!