San Antonio (Part 1)

 Last Sunday morning we headed out early (it was definitely not bright at 5:00 am!) for San Antonio.

 This is the picture of the welcome sign into Texas--very appropriate as it poured for a good portion of the drive down.

 When we finally got there a little after 5:00, we headed down to the River Walk for dinner.

 When you're in San Antonio, you have to eat a lot of ice cream.  At least if you're in our family, you do.

 After dinner we checked out our hotel (we stayed at the Drury Plaza Hotel on the River Walk).  The kids loved the rooftop pool and hot tub!

 The view from the pool area--22 floors up!

 Monday morning we got busy.

 Our first stop was the Alamo.

 Next up was a haunted house.  Thankfully Alice saw one of the actors right as we went through the turnstile and freaked out then, because according to the boys it was a pretty scary haunted house and we would have had to carry her back out through it.  She and I ended up hanging out in the snack bar while the boys went through.  We also did the Tomb Rider ride (also not a hit with Alice).

 Everyone enjoyed the Guinness World Records Museum!

 

 Comparing themselves to the world's tallest man and the world's smallest woman.

 There are lots of goofy photo ops!

 They also have different things you can try, like seeing how many dominoes you can stack or how loud you can scream.

 We went to the Ripley's 4D Theater, which was also a hit with everyone, though I felt a little wobbly afterward!

 This was taken in the Believe It or Not! Odditorium, which was fun.  We also went to Louis Tussaud's Waxworks, which was full of a lot of people the kids didn't recognize.

We had lunch on the River Walk and Alice got Nutella paninis!

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the San Antonio Children's Museum.

They had one of these things, which you may remember from an earlier trip!

They had a front loader the kids could move back and forth.

Flying an airplane!

They had a really nice grocery store section that Alice loved.  They had different scavenger hunt cards for kids to try.

You could also scan the groceries and see your total.

Monday evening we took the boat tour on the river.  These are so fun!

Coming soon: Tuesday and Wednesday!

Happy Birthday, Bobey!

 Over the years we've gone from taking pictures of Boris...

...to finding pictures on the camera that the kids (who weren't even around all those years ago) have taken of him.

Happy 13th birthday to the best cat ever!

The Medieval Fair

 We headed out for the Medieval Fair this morning!

 We saw acrobats!

 And jousting!

 We don't usually go to the fair, so this is kind of the equivalent for us.  There's junk food...

 ...and animals.

 I discovered we need a baby kangaroo.

 Seriously.

 Alice has always wanted to do this jumpy thing but she wasn't big enough until this year.  She was so excited and she loved it!

 They always like the swings, too.

 Our friends came, too!

 (Almost) everyone and the puppet show puppet.

The weather was beautiful and we had a good time.  Today's drive was 289.4 miles, which brings this year's road trip total to 1280.2!

Artist Study: Renoir

We just finished up our artist study on Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

 

Of course we used our favorite biography!

And we used our other favorites, too.

 

I just got this book and it's going to get a lot of use!  (Also, I'm having an online Usborne party right now, so if you want to order, let me know!)

Alice is a little old for the Sharing with Renoir book, but we looked through it for the pictures anyway.  I found this Art Around the World in the Time of Renoir book at the library and it was neat to see all the other kinds of art being made at the same time.

I picked this book up a while back at Half Price Books, which is a great place to find good deals on art and artist books!

 

This Smart About Art book was another HPB find!

We used this project from Art Projects for Kids to draw like Renoir!

 

We'll wrap up our artist studies for the year with Leonardo da Vinci!

Friday Fun (On a Stick!)

 Yesterday was Something on a Stick Day so we had sausages and pancakes on a stick and fruit kabobs for breakfast.

 Then we went to see a play of The Snail and the Whale.

 

 Jack found these teeth in my purse.  Of course I had them in my purse.  Pretty much everything ends up in my purse.

 After the play we went for our favorite (though not on a stick) lunch downtown and then to the children's museum to play for a bit.

 Dinner was on a stick and we watched a movie while we ate.

The kids had a sleepover in the tent in Alice's room.  I'm pretty sure their day ended after mine because I was exhausted and could still hear them laughing!