Our Weekend in San Antonio

We had a fun weekend in San Antonio this month. We went to go see the famous Alamo in downtown San Antonio. There were a lot of people visiting when we went. All of our pictures are of the outside of the Alamo because apparently the Alamo is a considered a shrine so no pictures are allowed of it from the inside. There are signs on the entry doors and people on the inside to let you know to not take pictures; and if you do take a picture, they kindly ask you to delete the picture. Kody was also asked to take his hat off as well while inside the main building. We were not expecting this when we got there.

There is a monument in front of the Alamo depicting the famous Davy Crockett and the Colonel, William B. Travis, in charge of the US side.

The grounds of the Alamo were gorgeous. It was covered in huge trees and greenery.

This is a fountain that is next to a building in the Alamo property that has now been remodeled to be a modern library that houses history books.

Little Ayva was so good. She enjoyed being pushed around.

This is one of the big trees on the property, there are some others that were a lot bigger than this one. These huge trees helped us keep cool, there is a lot of shade on the grounds.

Crockett's name is written on the side of the fountain above.

After the Alamo, we walked over to the famous Riverwalk. It was about $9 per person and I think it was worth it. You get to ride on open boats with a tour guide who tells you the history of the different buildings next to the San Antonio river.

These are the Riverwalk guide tour boats.

The glass building on the right is the Riverwalk mall.

There are many things to see while on the tour. This is an island of plotted flowers that you can see from the inside of the mall. If you look at the background of the picture you can see the glass windows that belong to the Riverwalk mall. It is a gorgeous view.

I think these are bells that belonged to an old Catholic church.

Beautiful staircase to the main floor of downtown San Antonio.

We were really lucky on this day. As soon as our boat docked under the bridge, it started to pour. Luckily, a store next to the boats sold ponchos. We waited for about 30 minutes before the rainstorm passed. There was still some rain, but not as much. At the end of the day we had to walk back to our car and on the way there we took this picture of Brisa and I at the Alamo in our lovely ponchos.

We stayed at the Sleep Inn hotel about 20 minutes away. We have to mention them because they had an awesome breakfast; well, from what we've had before this has been the best.

We've always had hotels say they have free breakfast, but they've only offered bananas, muffins, and packaged fruit bars. At the Sleep Inn we had the choice of real orange juice and apple juice, biscuits and gravy, hard boiled eggs, cereal, bagels, and waffles. But not just any waffles... TEXAS shaped waffles.

My waffle didn't turn out as good as Kody's did, but I still thought it was really cool to eat Texas, and so did Brisa. We had a geography lesson while we ate breakfast.

On Saturday we went to Sea World. This was Brisa and Ayva's first time there.

Brisa loved the shows, you can see in this picture how she is concentrating on the animals. Ayva loved the huge TV screen. She stared at it the whole time.

Believe is the name of the Shamu show. It was amazing to see these huge animals jump out of the air. They were beautiful. We even got to see a baby Shamu (yes, I know they are called killer whales but I'm going to call them Shamu's). The baby Shamu was born on January 7, a day before Ayva was born.

A picture right outside the Shamu stadium.

Ayva fell asleep after the show. She was exhausted from an early morning and from all of the excitement.

We also went to see The Cannery Row Caper, which features two silly seals, a river otter, and a huge walrus.

This show was hilarious. I recommend you go see this if you go to Sea World.

Well, once again we were lucky. While we were watching the show, it started to sprinkle a bit. We had left all of our ponchos in the stroller outside the stadium so we had to improvise a way to keep Ayva dry.

Kody was giving us a kissy face. Ayva had no problem with this new arrangement. She enjoyed being inside daddy's shirt.

The last show we saw was the Azul show. This one featured dolphins, beluga whales, parrots, and amazing acrobats. There were many stunts during the show. My favorite one was before the show even started. Here's an insider tip. This show starts earlier than what the flyer says. There is a man dressed like a tourist who basically acts like a clown. There is a fountain that squirts water out and he just seems to get in the way of this fountain everytime and splash everyone around him.

Now, the only reason there is a splash zone in this stadium is because of the "tourist." The beluga whales and dolphins don't really splash the audience. This "tourist" started his act about 15 minutes before the show. He then was also in the show still pretending to be a tourist and not knowing how to act around the animals. It was very amusing, especially for the little kids. Brisa was laughing the whole time.

The stars in the show are not only the animals, but the acrobats as well. They did some amazing jumps from high above, and amazing flips as well.

After the show we went to go feed the dolphins. You could buy fish to feed the dolphins.



We did have a down pour but we were luckily in a show. Ayva's stroller got a personal pink poncho as well. The hole for the head was in the front where we could peek through to see Ayva.

We took some final family pictures to remember this fun day.
And right before we left, we found Shamu walking around and got to pose with him.
That same night we went to my cousins quinceanera. We left Sea World at 5:30, made it to the hotel by 6:00, showered the girls and ourselves, and got ready for a party in less than 45 minutes. I never thought it could be possible, but we succeeded.

There were two girls celebrating their quinceanera on this day, my cousin is the one in the bright pink dress and my uncle, her dad, is dancing with her in this picture.

(Tiffany and Tio Pepe above)

(Tiffany and her Chambelan below)

The next day, Sunday, we spent the day with my family and my grandparents from Mexico. I had not seen any of them in 6 years. It was nice to see them again. This was a long, busy, and fun weekend.