Family Vacation 2011 {Part I}

Vacation is a love/hate relationship for me.  I totally dread the week before and week after a vacation, but I absolutely love the week of vacation.  The usual, right?  And I'm sad that our family vacation for the year has already come and gone so fast.  But this is no time to complain because we had a great week!  I can even say that it has been the best (short or long) family vacation to date.  The kids were amazing, the weather was superb, and we spent the whole thing with some special people!

Friday of Memorial Day weekend, we packed the car and kids, like many Americans, and headed to the Lone Star State!  Our twin nephews were celebrating their 4th birthday that week and we wanted to celebrate with them.  A Pump it Up party, golf, waterpark, and shopping day filled up our holiday weekend quickly!  Then on Tuesday we packed it up again and headed to San Antonio, but not without a stop first at the Houston Aquarium.

The picture below totally cracks me up.  Trying to get 3 kids to smile is no easy task.  After minutes of begging for a smile, I finally gave up and just told them to make a silly face on the count of 1-2-3.  This is what I got in response to that request.  I can't wait to use this as blackmail someday!

We were waving to Uncle Josh, who was on the sideline avoiding the awesome effect carousels can have on someone with easy motion sickness.  At the end, I was wishing I was next to him!  

 After a morning at the Aquarium, we drove to San Antonio and spend the evening on the Riverwalk.  The kids got their first taste of a Hard Rock Cafe and then off to stroll the Riverwalk and ride the boats.

The picture below marks the beginning of the end of that night!  Martha and I were doing our best to corral the kids on the edge of the Riverwalk (as you can probably see there is no barrier to the water, totally horrible for kids!) while the men bought the boat tickets.  We got them up on the ledge and I started to snap some cute picks of the whole pack.  See all the beautiful trees around the Riverwalk, well guess what trees mean - BIRDS!  So as I'm snapping the pictures, Martha gets blasted with bird poop on her head!  Some nice passerbys offer her a wet wipe and she's in process of cleaning, while I try and continue to watch the kids.  Hudson starts whining, so I grab him and then Hudson and I both get baptized with bird poop as well!  It turns in to total chaos, trying to watch the 4 kids and continue cleaning up.  Not my idea of fun!  The guys return, we throw all the kids at them and have to stand in line for about another 15 minutes.  Pretty sure we were "those" people with the screaming kids in line because we had to maintain our spot without letting them get too close to the side and it was waaaay past their bedtime already after a long day.  After boarding the boat, the mood of the group improved but I was just waiting for the ball to drop.  It didn't and we survived.  And even enjoyed some amazing scenery.  Plus, I got a great story & memory out of it!