Sheep Guarding Llama

Woke up at 5:40 this morning and just decided to get some work done.  Dominica was up getting ready to go into her last regularly scheduled day at the office and I had a seven o’clock conference call this morning so decided to just get up and head to the office in the house and get some work done since I was awake anyway.

Worked from home all morning.  Was pretty productive.  Was there will around ten.  Morgan is watching the kids, as usual.

Just before I was about to head into the office Chelsey messaged me needing me to get her socks because she showed up to work with cowboy boots and no socks and was going to be nothing but blisters by the end of the day if she didn’t get socks but she didn’t know anyone in the area.  So I ran over to Target and picked up a pair of socks for her and ran over to Redneck to drop them all.  Luckily it is basically on my way into the office so it wasn’t a big deal at all.

Into the office for a few hours.  A little busy today, not too bad.  Then around one Dan and I went up to Redneck for lunch.

Back to work and worked a little late, then home.  We watched Are You Being Served? while I worked from my laptop all evening.  The girls were out of control climbing all over me and Dominica and the couch and screaming and being crazy rambunctious.  Not sure what Morgan gave them but it must have been sugar, food colouring and caffeine.

Finally got the kids to bed.  Dominica was in bed by nine, even before I could get Liesl to bed.  I went to bed at twenty till ten.  Boy I feel old saying that!

Tomorrow is non-farm payroll so I am up at six.

Back to work and normal life after our little tiny mini-vacation.  Was not looking forward to returning to the office today, I was enjoying my around the clock family time.

I got up and worked from home for a bit this morning because I was paged out at six in the morning.  So I started my day pretty early.  Went into the office around ten having worked a four hour morning already.  I took two dozen Round Rock donuts into the office with me today.  Turns out that Minh, whom I haven’t seen in nearly nine months, was in the office yesterday for the first time at our new office but I missed her.

I ended up working through lunch but was very productive today.  I got tons done and caught up on Spiceworks which was important.  I was hundreds of posts behind after being away all weekend.  Luckily for me, things slow down considerably when I am not there which makes it easier for me, than for other people, to catch up.

I worked in the office till around five thirty then came home.  Dominica cooked dinner, one of her lean zucchini dishes that I really like.  We watched some of Are You Being Served? while we ate.

After dinner we decided to watch Disney’s The Sword in the Stone for Liesl to get her ready for Walt Disney World.  Dominica is putting her on a Disney movie marathon to make sure that she knows all of the characters and stuff before we go.  She liked it.  That was one of my favourite Disney movies when I was young.  That was one that dad used to get on real to real film back when I was about Liesl’s age.  I remember watching it a lot back then.  The wizard’s dual was one of my favourite scenes from all of the Disney archives, that one and the soccer match from Bedknobs and Broomsticks.  That is one that Liesl needs to watch soon as well.

Got Luciana off to bed at a good time.  She needed it, she was very tired.  Liesl decided that she wanted to go to bed at a quarter till ten but we couldn’t let her go right away because Luciana was still awake and struggling to get to sleep.

Dominica and I worked on the toilet in our master bath again tonight.  Today the flapper broke.  If it isn’t one thing it is another with that stupid toilet.  We are tempted to replace the whole thing.  What a pain it has been.  At least we did manage to get it fixed tonight.  Not the week long ordeal that it was last time.  That was really awful.  But we have AJ coming to stay with us this week so having the toilet be broken is not an option.

Today is our last morning in San Antonio for our mini vacation.  Dominica woke up early with a migraine so that shot her morning.  She was up really early.  I slept in for a little bit till around seven.  Liesl and Luciana slept until later.

I am back to work today but working from the hotel room all morning so set up the laptop and worked from the living room while Dominica laid on the couch watching HGTV trying to get her headache under control.

I went down to the lobby store and got her Ibuprofen and worked from my laptop in the living room all morning until noon when it was time to check out.  The girls slept in for a little while them played on the iPads.  We were all a little worn out this morning.

At noon we loaded up the car and drive the hour and a half up to Austin.  We went via Round Rock so that we could stop and pick up Round Rock donuts for today and for me to take to the office tomorrow morning as well.  Then we drove over to Andy and Miranda’s house which I have only been to once before (which is really hard to believe) and Dominica has never seen.

Andy just recently quit his job to pursue his dream of making video games so is home full time and Miranda is on permanent maternity stay to stay home with baby Ben who is just three months old.  This is their first time seeing Liesl since her second birthday party at our then brand new house in Carrollton and their first time ever meeting Luciana.

We stayed until four thirty when I was done working and then we drove back up to home which took about three hours.  The girls were restless and very much ready to get out of the car by the time that we were getting home.  Before going home we decided to go to Red Lobster for the final dinner of our vacation.

We went to the Red Lobster and had a nice dinner.  We discovered that we really love their fried broccoli, it is amazing.  The girls did pretty well considering how restless they had been in the car.  We were pretty quick about dinner, though, to make sure that they were not stuck there unnecessarily.

It was pretty late, and already dark, when we got home.  We were all tired.  It was pretty much right to bed for everyone.

Today is our big San Antonio day.  We got up and went down and did breakfast in the hotel.  It wasn’t the best breakfast.  It was okay.  The breakfast room was great, very nice with views of the canal.  We ate then headed out for the day to see San Antonio before it got too hot.

Our first stop was The Alamo.  I have never been and Dominica has not been in a long time.  It was too hot still today so with much of the exhibit outside I was dying.  We spent as much time inside as possible but there is only so much to do and the girls were pretty restless – not the kind of thing to keep them entertained at all and you are not even supposed to touch the walls so we had to be really careful.

It was pretty neat getting to actually see such a famous location, though.  Although having been to Europe, it’s a pretty recent structure without much history.  The history was interesting though and we enjoyed it.  I am very glad that I had the opportunity to come down to San Antonio and see it before we move away from Texas.

From there we walked to a Trolley Tour and took that around the city.  We enjoy doing that and wish that Dallas and Houston had them too but, as far as we can tell, they do not.  Austin and San Antonio are much more touristy and both have them and have some really interesting history to learn about.  San Antonio especially is just loaded with unique and interesting history having been a major town in Texas going well back into the Mexican era and even into the New Spain era.

The tour was less than an hour and took us to a few of the missions out on the mission trail which I wanted to see.  That was interesting but it was too hot to get out and check them out and with the girls that would not have been fun anyway.  I had not realized that the missions were in the city but had thought that they were very far out in outlying areas.

After our tour we decided to get off before the very end and went into the San Antonio market, the largest Mexican market outside of Mexico.  It was quite large and very interesting.  A lot of stuff for sale and a lot of good food.  We went to La Tierra, the most famous restaurant in San Antonio, which runs twenty four hours a day and had about an hour wait.  While we were waiting in line I ran to the “Cup o’ Corn” stand and got some fresh grilled corn in a cup for the family to enjoy.  While the girls were eating that I ran into our friend Paola from La Cima coming out of La Tierra.  Very weird to run into someone you know so far from home.  She came out and saw the girls, she hasn’t seen Luciana since she was less than one year old.

Eating at La Tierra was really good.  We cheated on the diets quite a bit but it was a special treat.  Really good food.

We got back on the bus and returned to the end of the tour.  From there we walked to Main Plaza where we had seen lots of really cool fountains while on the tour and spent about an hour with the girls playing in the municipal fountains.  They really loved that.  It was all that we could do to get them to leave when we were done there.  It was too hot and Dominica was starting to feel sick from the heat.  I took a ton of pictures of the kids playing in the fountain.

Back to the hotel for a little bit, we relaxed and watched some A&E silly shows for a few hours during the hottest part of the day waiting for the sun to go down and the crowds to subside before going out to take the canal tours.  The girls have been really anxious to get to take a canal tour.  They want to ride in the boats.

So at eight thirty we went and took the after dark boat tour which was really nice.  It was finally cool enough that we didn’t really sweat (much) and the tour was very enjoyable.  Doing it at night was definitely the right thing.  The boat wasn’t packed, it wasn’t so hot and it is all really pretty at night.

Then we went and got in to a late seating at the Rainforest Cafe that sites on the Riverwalk.  The girls thought that this was one of the best things ever.  They loved it.  Luciana was a little scared of the moving gorillas that were right behind our table but she thought that the whole thing was really cool.  Liesl was enthralled and couldn’t stand the excitement.  I had to take her for a walk around the restaurant so that she could see all of the animals.  She even asked the waiter if there was a crocodile to see.  There was… on the first floor so we had to save that for the way out.

After the Rainforest Cafe it was time to walk back to our hotel.  The girls were very tired after such a long, hot and exciting day.  And it was quite late, well after Luciana’s bed time and nearly Liesl’s.  Definitely time to get to bed.  We got them to bed right away and Dominica and I stayed up for just a little while in the living room.  We have each girl in a different bed.  Luciana by the window and Liesl on the inside.  We each sleep with one of them because if they sleep in the same bed Luciana will never let Liesl fall asleep.  Even with them in two beds we have to put Luciana to bed first so that she falls asleep before Liesl is in the room.

Originally I was going to be helping Morgan Rug Doctor her apartment this morning but it turned out that the power had been turned off already so that pretty much took care of that.  So the morning was actually free.

We decided that since we had no particular obligations to forego the original plan of heading to San Antonio this evening and instead packed up the car and were out the door around ten.  That was a nice surprise.  We will get to San Antonio with enough time to actually get to enjoy today rather than just traveling and seeing it tomorrow.

The drive down was fine, it took just over four and a half hours to get down there.  We took the incredibly high speed (and high cost) 130 toll road that goes around Austin bypassing the entire metro area.  Very impressive. The high cost guarantees that it is empty.  I had to work today so I had to do a conference call from the car and be on work email much of the day but it ended up being a very light day and it worked out really well, an excellent use of the time.

We got to the hotel in the mid-afternoon.  We are staying at the Hilton Homewood Suites located right on the Riverwalk itself.  That was Dominica’s idea and she, once again, totally wins with the good hotel choices.  This is our first time staying in a Hilton property as a family and we were incredibly impressed.  I stay at the Doubletree from time to time for business but am always traveling on my own and don’t think very much of it.  They are nice but since I am alone and working I rarely pay any attention.  The Homewood really impressed us.

Our room was amazing.  A full double bed bedroom with a pocket door separating it from a living area with a full size refrigerator, range, kitchen table and living room with couch and arm chair.  Tons of room to actually spread out and relax.  Plus a television in each room so that we could watch one thing and the kids something else.  The wireless Internet access worked really well too so we were able to put all three iPads, my phone and my laptop on it without any hassle at all.

The girls thought that it was amazing fun to stand in the bedroom window and look straight down at the Riverwalk and watch the boats laden with tourists go by every minute or so.  They watched that for a really long time.

Once we relaxed a little, did some research on restaurants, got our barrings and unpacked, we went down to the lobby and got directions to get to the Riverwalk – easy… just cross the side street and the ramp down for the stroller was right there.  The girls rode in the double stroller and we set out to explore the canal that runs through downtown San Antonio and to look for an authentic Mexican restaurant for dinner.

It turned out to be hot, really hot.  Around 104F plus quite humid, which San Antonio is famous and when you go down to the Riverwalk, which sits beneath street level, there is no air movement at all leaving you with no way to cool down.  In a minute I was sweating like mad.  Not fun.

We went down the Riverwalk for a while and ended up getting stuck not knowing how to get to the other side of the river and our side of the river ended at an outdoor auditorium space.  So we tried crossing one of the concrete bridges that goes over the river.    Dominica took Luciana to carry her and I was just going to pick up the stroller when Dominica fell on the steps onto Luciana.  Luciana’s head hit the concrete steps and her bare back, she was in a dress, hit as well.  Luckily Dominica caught herself and landed on her knees to some degree.

Luciana was hurt pretty badly and really upset.  We didn’t know what to do so raced back to the hotel.  At first we thought that she was only hurt from her head bouncing off of the concrete, it wasn’t for a little bit that we noticed the giant red scratch running from nearly shoulder to shoulder.  Poor little girl.  Before we made it all of the way into the hotel, though, Luciana seemed to recover herself and was acting fine.  So we checked her out and decided that there was no point returning to the hotel, so we set about finding ramps to continue on our walk.

We ended up walking essentially every inch of the Riverwalk.  The heat was unbearable without any breeze and I was drenched in sweat before we were done.  It was awful.  The Riverwalk itself was amazingly beautiful and completely packed with tourists which made it pretty annoying.  We were looking for a specific restaurant but could not find it at all.

By the end of the walk I was so hot and miserable that I didn’t want to eat at a restaurant there even if it looked good as I was so uncomfortable.  I felt disgusting and just wanted to get back home and shower.  It would be like going into a fancy restaurant anywhere after having been to the gym for a hard workout without showering first – you just wouldn’t do it.  We tried Rainforest Cafe but the wait was like an hour.  We tried another and the air conditioning wasn’t on hard enough to make it any cooler than being outside.  So we gave up and went back to the hotel.

At the hotel we just relaxed.  The hotel was so nice that it was a great way to wind down.  We watched HGTV and ordered in Jimmy John’s, which Dominica has never had before.  That was really good.  The kids played on the iPads and Luciana appears to be no worse for wear.  They thought that hanging out in the hotel was great fun.  At one point Luciana stole away and hid on the far bed in the other room to get quiet time to use her iPad all alone.  Liesl was more snugly.

So on our first day we got settled in and saw the entire Riverwalk, the central point of tourism in San Antonio.  It might have been hot but at least we got to see the whole thing.  We gad originally thought that that was going to have to be part of our stuff tomorrow, so we have a lot more time tomorrow to relax and casually do the other things that we want to do.