san antonio trip

Kevin had to work in San Antonio for two days (March 16-17), so we decided to drive down and make a family weekend of it. We made the 4 hour drive down on Sunday morning, and went directly to Sea World.  I had never been, so I was pretty excited.  I was also certain that Brooke would love it, but I was a little nervous about how she would do with no afternoon nap!

The shows were awesome!  They were all about 20-25 minutes, which for a toddler, was perfect. She would clap for the animals, and kept saying "dolphin", and "whale".

We enjoyed the most amazing funnel cake after one of the shows.  Brooke was not interested in being fed little bites.  She grabbed the spoon and took matters into her own hands, haha. 

Another favorite was the penguin exhibit.  You entered the building, stood on one of those moving walkways, and it took you past a ton of penguins and the trainers feeding them.

 Our last show of the day was the Killer Whales.  It was amazing to me how large they really are.  I was also a little sad for them that they had to perform in a tank all day.  After returning home, I actually read an article that said the number one way the whales in captivity died was from banging their head against the glass.  Pretty sad :(

Brooke was not too happy about leaving the park.  This is her pouty pose, haha!  For no nap though, she did pretty great.  She started asking for her pacifier halfway through our outing, and I gave in since I knew she was really tired.  

 It was a lot warmer than we planned, so when we got back to the car, we stripped Brooke's pants and she was asleep in minutes.

 She had a really hard time going to sleep that night, and once she was finally out, I didn't want to risk putting her into the pack-n-play, so she slept in our bed. Which meant that I hardly slept!  She kept waking up and would fall back asleep once she was laying on/near me, but it was a long night.  In the morning, we were supposed to drive Kevin to work, but I really debated waking Brooke.  If we didn't take him, we would be stuck at the hotel all day with no car, so I took this picture then woke her up to meet Kevin in the lobby.

 After making the drop-off, Brooke and I headed back to the hotel for breakfast, a little movie time, naps, lunch at Pizza Hut, and an afternoon at Phil Hardberger park. The park is located on an old dairy farm, and was beautiful!  So many fun activities for Brooke, including a little nature walk to collect rocks and sticks :)

I seriously adore my nature-loving girl.  She is happiest when we are outdoors and she can run free. After a few hours at the park, we met Kevin at Outback Steakhouse for dinner.  We were all pretty tired, so we had an early night, and we all slept much better (thankfully!).  Tuesday, Brooke and I had a few more hours at the park, had a lunch date at Corner Bakery, and picked Kevin up at 2 pm to make the drive back home.  Overall, it was a great little family adventure, and even better when work pays for your hotel and gas :)