Texas Finale: Sea World, San Antonio

On our final day in TX, we visited Sea World in San Antonio.

Love this picture of Hunter on the way there: conquering the world, one bottle at a time! ;)

Holden and "Shamu"
Similar to Busch Gardens, there was a Sesame World, but it was much more water themed. That was where we sent the majority of our morning. Here we are on the carousel.

The boys and Rosita...I think?? I get some of the newer characters mixed up.

Holden just love the characters! So funny since he used to petrified of them not too long ago!

Good times in Sesame Land...can you imagine being in one of those costumes?! It was over 100 degrees and I was DRIPPING sweat in my shorts!
Grammy, Papa, and the boys with good ol' Grover. (Love how Hunter is looking at him.)

Hunter was in his swim trunks because I was getting him ready for the water area. :)

Family pose with Big Bird!

Four is the perfect age for theme parks. Holden just had a ball. He loved the rides, the characters, climbing the big nets with Daddy, you name it.

I loved watching him have such a good time.

Taking a toddler to theme parks is challenging, I won't deny it. Taking a toddler to a theme park in 100+ temps is an extra challenge. Hunter is truly a little trooper. I included the picture in the top right corner of the collage just so you can see how SWEATY the back of his head was!! He enjoyed sight-seeing and eating ice cubes. He played with wood chips more than he played in the water. He looked cute with his rosy little cheeks. And he will have much more fun next year!

Holden was ALL about the water! I brought his trunks, but he opted to stay in his clothes and get them "really soakin' wet, Mommy!" so that he could walk around wet and stay cooler for awhile. Made sense to me!

One of the highlights of every one's day was the dolphin cove, where you could pet and feed dolphins. So fun! I just love dolphins. They are so friendly and look like they are smiling. Of course if you have food for them, they are extra friendly! Hunter was asleep in the stroller and I am really bummed he missed this. I think he would have loved it! Holden did.

We had to find the sharks for Holden. He is just fascinated with them. There were some really scary ones, too! We also got to watch a diver feeding sting-rays, and he high-fived Holden through the glass.

Holden's hand compared to a Gentoo penguin's foot. He has a little growing to do. :)

We had a great day at Sea World despite the TX heat, and enjoyed a yummy send-off dinner at Aunt Steph and Uncle Kevin's that night, with all kinds of delicious Tex-Mex food. YUM! I wish I would have taken pics there of everyone together. I was too busy enjoying the food and cooling off in the pool. Holden talks about our trip often and asks when we will go back to TX again.

TX trip Part 4: fun in Austin

Oy....it is end of August and I am now finishing up our JUNE Texas trip! At this point I am just proud that I am keeping the blog going, even if at a slower pace than I would like. It will eventually all get on there. :) We had such a fun, fast-paced summer. I can't believe it's over. I just finished/survived (ha!) my first week of school! I need to blog the summer bdays, 4th of July, and then probably just a big ol' summer recap. It was so much easier to keep up when I was a mommy of one! But that just means my life is full and I'm out there living it.

Sooo....here we go with Part 3 of our TX trip.

The day after the wedding was Father's Day. The boys had helped me pick out cards for Daddy and Papa before we left on our trip. We agreed instead of presents we would spend the money on doing some fun things in Austin during the day. Below are the boys in their, "I Dig My Dad" shirts with Jay. They love their daddy! Holden chose the Spiderman card with great care. ;)

Holden and Papa playing with his pirate scene magnet set.

We gave Holden some different choices, and he really wanted to explore a "bat cave." We found one called the Innerspace Caverns. They are called this because at the time they were discovered, space exploration had begun. The caves reminded the explorers of outer space, only they were inside the Earth. The boys took a real liking to the headlamps for sale in the gift shop.

Holden and the Wooley Mammoth. Ha!

Papa and Hunter checking out photos of the bats that live in the caves. Their nickname is the "chicken nugget" bats because they are the size and shape of said McD's food.
Getting ready to head down in the tram to the cave entrance!

Papa and Grammy in the tram

Entrance to the cave...a little spooky! Holden was all excited
and said it reminded him of Scooby Doo!
Love this one of Holden and Daddy walking along in the cave. Holden kept hiking up his pants and I finally checked them and realized they are the adjustable waist kind and I had failed to tighten the little belt things. They worked much better after that! You can see him grabbing them in the picture. :)
My buddy and me in the cave

Stalagmites and stalactites in the cave

Grammy and Holden walking through the cave together

Scenes from our cave exploration

Baby Hunter got nice and comfy on Papa's shoulder. I guess the dark, cool cave reminded him of nap time. Papa carried his dead weight through the cave for over an hour. At one point, he was snoring with his mouth wide open! Guess he wasn't too impressed with our tour.

Can you see the little bat? The tour guide (who reminded us of Velma from Scooby Doo! Same looks and voice, took her job VERY seriously...cracked us up!) shone her flashlight on it. We weren't allowed to use flash on our cameras because it can startle them and make them flap around people's heads. Eek!

We went to my Aunt Steph's house for dinner that evening, and enjoyed cooling off in her pool.

Holden was a great helper watering Aunt Steph's flowers. He took his job very seriously. :)

Apparently Papa is the best pillow in the world in Hunter's opinion.

Second nap of the day he took laying on him. :) Papa looks pretty sleepy himself.

My aunt redid her upstairs living room area now that her kids are out of the house. She has TONS of Beatles memorabilia, and turned the room into a black and white Beatles themed room! It is so cool! I loved looking around at everything. These pics don't really do it justice.

Holden and Grammy playing Duplos in the Beatles room.

I had to snap some pics of Hunter during bath time at our hotel.

He is such a little ham!

On another day during our stay, Holden was bound and determined that we were going to find a putt-putt place. Who doesn't want to putt-putt in 100 degree heat indexes? Ha! We did find a quaint little place called "Peter Pan Golf." The boys loved checking out all of the storybook characters.

Does anybody else think the skateboard rabbit is kinda scary??

Family pic by the T-Rex!
We had to get a pic with Peter Pan, too. :)
After putt-putt, we went over to the state capital building. It was neat to look up, up, up into the round top with the star in it. Holden and I went up the elevator and looked down at Grammy, Papa, and Hunter below. Keeping with his trip theme of "baby who sleeps anywhere," Hunter fell asleep in his stroller and slept through this experience as well. We went to a YUMMY little Tex-Mex place called Serranos for lunch.

Holden had spotted a snow cone camper on our drive to putt-putt earlier in the day. Jay had told him we could stop by later. Apparently he was under the assumption Holden would forget. Are all of you moms laughing at this assumption? I know I was! As we were leaving the capital building, Holden pipes up from the back about the snow cone camper. Now here's the thing: we didn't exactly remember where it was at! Jay drove around looking that camper while Holden anxiously peered out the window. We finally did locate it. Hunter was asleep...AGAIN (we wore that boy our on our trip!) so the rest of us chilled (literally) in the air-conditioned van while Daddy and Holden braved the heat once again to enjoy snow cones. I did hop out to snap pictures.
I love that he is wearing his "Chill Out, Dude" shirt with the popsicle on it.

Very appropriate. :)

Playtime fun with Grammy in her hotel room.

We stayed at a Doubletree, and it had fountains in various locations.

The boys LOVED them! Cheap entertainment.

Love them in their little Hawaiian shirts.

Brothers
Cool chair in the lobby.

Cute boys occupying it.

Make a wish, Hunter!

Make a wish, Holden!

Busy little boys
Family picture in the courtyard.
3 generations

Cute one of my parents

Heart!

My energetic, busy, crawling, toddling, tripping, button-pushing, mischief making Hunter


My giggly, happy, enthusiastic, inquisitive, running, jumping, climbing,

snow-cone loving Holden. (Who at age 4 will actually pose for me!) :)