Monday, July 08, 2013

4th of July Weekend Trip

I know that there's the CA trip that I still need to post.  Michael asked me why I haven't posted about our trip yet and I said I'm working on it.  So much to catch up on! I'm posting about our trip to San Antonio Hill Country because it's a smaller bite to chew.

We left our house on Wednesday and stayed overnight just north of Austin.  Our 3-hour trip went without incident.  The kids behaved and Mark slept most of the time.  We went to dinner at the Salt Lick, where their slogan is "You can smell our pits from miles away."  Matthew read that on the waiter's shirt and had a good laugh at it.

The food was so good!  My favorite was their ribs.  Even Michael liked it.  Mark probably had more brisket and ribs than the other 2 boys!

We had breakfast at the hotel on 4th of July and got on the road again early in the morning because we wanted to be get to the J.W. Marriott early to enjoy the pools and the water slides as long as we can.  The boys were so excited to be back! We got them their own room for our sanity. They loved having their own space.

Our days there were pretty much the same. M woke up early, went down to the pool to claim our chairs (major must because if you don't go down to save some by 8 in the morning, chances of you snagging chairs were slim). When everyone was awake and dressed, we went down to breakfast and then it was off to the pool!

We would get to the pool by 10am.  Michael and Matty would go off and we wouldn't see them until lunchtime.  They made a ton of friends and decided that it was much more fun to go off and play with them than stick around with us.  We hardly saw them during the day.  When they got tired, they would come ask us for the keys to their room and go up for a little bit and come back down to swim/play some more.

After hours of sun and swim, we collected the boys and went up to our rooms to get ready for dinner.  Then it was games and play time on the lawn for the boys while we watched with our wine and live music.  I have to mention that the weather there was awesome! It was perfect - warm, breezy and VERY little humidity. Perfect evening weather to sit and enjoy the lazy summer weekend.

The boys had so much fun with their friends.  When they weren't playing the organized games that the hotel staff set up, they were running around playing football, ping-pong and go exploring.  They had so much fun playing that they didn't even go and get s'mores (which they always look forward to every time we've been there).

My goal was to get family pictures, but it was just too hard to herd the boys and make them stay for pictures.  Mark was also not cooperative in the picture taking process so I said forget it and just enjoyed my evenings.

I always love going on these road trips and it's become our tradition to take this trip at least once a year during a holiday weekend. We always have so much fun.  I can't wait until we do this again!

This is the beautiful view from our balcony.

Mark's first time at the splash pool.  He's checking it out and taking it all in.

Dad's showing him the ropes.

Then he's off on his own. He loved that little fish thing.  Any time any one came close to it, he would try to push them away and announce that it's "mine!" He loved the mini water slides at the kiddie pool. He must of gone on it at least 50 times!  I don't have any pictures, but will try to get some from M to post. He was so adorable and so happy!

One of the better pictures I took.  There were not many good ones.

 I couldn't round the other boys up for a family pick. This was the best I could do.

Playing around on the lawn.  I wish I had the same grass at home.



Playing around while waiting for our breakfast.

An attempt of getting all 3 of them together for a picture



Mark took his naps outside all three days at the pool.  Right after he woke up, he wanted back into the pool again until dinnertime.

This was better than my first attempt, but not by much.

This looks like M is giving him beer, but really Mark was trying to make the whistling sound when you blow into an empty bottle.  He couldn't do it so he just made a "whooing" sound with his voice into the bottle.  M thought is was the funniest thing ever!


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