Remember the Alamo-San Antonio, Texas

We had a parenting win yesterday….we survived an afternoon and evening in downtown San Antonio. We even had a ton of fun. The kids did very well overall. Everything went relatively smooth except one thing……steps……so so many steps. This wouldn’t have been a big deal, but we had two double strollers. By the end of the day we figured out a system. Rather than taking the baby out every time and collapsing both strollers, we just had the older three get out and walk. Brandon carried the empty stroller along with grabbing the front of Isla’s stroller while I held onto the handles of her stroller while we went up or down flights of steps. We looked rediculous. We definitely got some looks and a few comments. We also had some offers to help. It all worked out and no one will ever see us again. And let’s be real for a second, the nice thing about the city is people are very open minded. They have seen all sorts of people, and overall everyone was very nice to us. One of my highlights of the day was a conversation a homeless man started with Brielle. She was talking and talking to him. He loved it. She was telling him all sorts of things. I think it made his day. He said most of the time, no one on the bus will talk to him, so it really blessed him that a young girl wanted to tell him so many things. She was telling him all about her baby sister. The last thing the guy said to Brielle before he got off the bus was, “you make sure to always look out for your baby sister.” Brielle has repeated that to me a few times now. She tells me “I will always look out for my baby sister.”

We chose a very busy week to come to San Antonio. Kids are on spring break here. We didn’t know that until we got to the Alamo and the line to get in was 3 blocks long. We didn’t let that stop us from going to see it. Luckily the line moved very quickly. I didn’t know until we got inside, but The Alamo is pretty small and people moved in and out quickly.

After The Alamo we decided to take the kids on a river boat ride. This is where all the steps came in. We had to walk down SO many steps to get there. Once we finally got there, once again the line was insanely long. It reminded me of Disney. We had already bought our tickets though so we waited. I’m glad we did. It was a lot of fun. There was a little boy who was sad because he couldn’t see very well. I offered to switch him seats if his mom didn’t mind him being in the middle of all my kids. She was very thankful and our kids made a new friend. Joah kept putting his arm around him and pointing out every duck he saw in the water. It was very sweet and his mom and I were laughing. It’s so cute how kids instantly connect like they’ve known each other forever.

After the boat ride everyone was hungry and about to melt down. There were several restaraunts right there on the river. We decided on a Mexican one. Our tour guide told us it was the oldest restaurant on the river and had very good food. We all loved it. Only poor Caed had a traumatizing experience. We ate outside and there were birds everywhere. All the sudden we heard Caed screaming and crying, “Give me back my fry!” I think you can figure out what happened. Brandon and I were laughing so hard. Caed was not amused. He was so upset about his fry. He has been talking about “the birdie ate my fry” ever since.

We ate right on the river. The kids loved watching the ducks in the water.

When we got back to our campground last night the playground was swamped. Kids were everywhere. Like I said it’s spring break here and lots of families are camping. Our kids wanted to go play so we let them. Joah wanted to play basketball so bad. There was a group of very nice older boys who let him join. He had a blast. Brandon ended up playing too and Joah chose not to be on his team. Brandon was just a little crushed at how much Joah is growing up.