Our Mini Family Vacation!

I told Kent all summer that when his busy time was over we were going to be in DESPERATE need of a little family vacation. He kept his promise to me and we made that happen this last week. Our original plan was to hit up Destin, FL BUT with my pregnant self having SERIOUS back issues that would make it very uncomfortable to sit for long periods of time, we re-routed our trip to San Antonio where we stayed in the BEST resort! If you're headed to San Antonio and want something quiet, relaxing and with LOTS to do, hit up the Hyatt Wild Oak Ranch Resort! Seriously, we fell in LOVE! Before we got to the hotel, we of course had to hit up the big outlet mall in San Marcos to get a few things...you can't pass that place up! We then spent the rest of the afternoon/evening enjoying the resort.....

One of our favorite parts was the relaxing, secluded lazy river.

The whole resort has greenery everywhere! It makes it all feel so much more private and beautiful!

We lounged in the hammocks around the lazy river for a little bit....until Kent started getting a little crazy with the swinging!

This is what Boston liked to do in the hotel room....hang out on the balcony! All you could see was GREEN! The next day we spent even more time at some of their pools which I'm SO bugged that I forgot to bring my camera to capture 1) Boston playing in the splash pad 2) Kent flipping FLYING down one of the slides....guess we'll have to go back to recapture those moments (and I'm okay with that)!

Next, a little SEAWORLD!!! Kent didn't go with us earlier this year AND in October they have their "Howl O Scream" where the park is all decorated for Halloween and they have fun Halloween shows going on! Definitely the time to go with GREAT weather and NO crowds!

Boston says his FAVORITE part of Seaworld was the Shamu rollercoaster....we rode it many times that day!

Boston loved the kiddie rides and also started to get a little daring raising his hands in the air on the rides!

As dinky as this little ride was Boston still LOVED it and asked to ride the eggs over and over....the next time I made Kent ride!

Last time we were there, I don't know why but we never went and fed the dolphins! This was a HIT this time around!

We originally bought one tray of food that Boston just tossed right in so we didn't get much of a chance to get extra close so Kent went and came back with 4 more trays to feed them! We were MUCH more successful this time around!

Also, if you had NO food to give, these dolphins would turn away quickly once they realized it...little snots!

We got a chance to visit the sharks...this part wasn't the most exciting I must admit!

Earlier this year we saw this show, Azul and I LOVED it and Boston watched in awe the whole time. It definitely didn't disappoint the 2nd time around!

And Boston still stayed GLUED!

Since the park was themed for Halloween, they had an area where the kids got to go trick or treating....SEAWORLD STYLE!

I kept trying to get Boston to turn for a quick picture but he just wanted to watch what was going on instead....guess he was getting annoyed at all my picture taking!

The sea lion show is always entertaining.

You could also feed the sea lions but since you couldn't get up as close, we decided it wasn't worth the money and just watched them instead.

Boston was DETERMINED to go play on the playground area they have for kids. We kept telling him we could play at the park any day but you couldn't do any of this other stuff except for today....he didn't care! He wanted to play at the PARK! So....we finally gave in and let the boy play!

Probably one of the biggest hits with Boston show wise was the Sesame Street Count Dracula show.

All the kids got up and danced and Boston didn't lose the smile on his face the entire time!

What's Halloween without a little haunted house?? No worries, we're not freaking our son our just yet...this one was "family friendly" and Boston laughed most of the way through (pointing our every "buggy" he saw along the way...yes thanks to his father, he DOES have an obsession)!

Of course you can't miss Shamu! We definitely got pretty wet at this show. I still can't believe that a whale who weighs that much can get itself out of the water like that and ON TOP of that, do a flip! I can barely get my pregnant self to get a few inches off the ground!!

Back to the egg ride...

Don't let this picture COMPLETELY fool you. Boston had just had a break down about 1 minute before this was taken. He was apologizing with a little love!

We stuck around to see the Howl o Scream Shamu show!

It was getting late and EVERYONE was getting exhausted...can't you tell?

"Jack" doing his little "scary" jingle...no worries, again not scary!

They had some issues getting the Shamu(s) out for the show (probably scared of Jack) but they finally came out and I felt like put on a BETTER show than the earlier one we'd seen!

We wanted to hit up the Halloween concert after this show but Boston zonked approximately 5 minutes after the Shamu show ended and since the park was closing in 15 minutes, we bailed instead! It was a LONG, EXCITING, FUN day and worth EVERY minute!

We decided to head back to Houston that night since Boston had a soccer game the next morning we didn't want him to miss (he missed school Thursday but we couldn't have him miss a soccer game...shows where OUR priorities are....). Our adventure took even longer then expected due to a little tire blowout in the middle of NO WHERE! It worsened when Kent realized we had NONE of the tools to change the spare! We drove to the nearest gas station (1.3 miles) in hopes to find someone who had tools that fit our tire....luckily we got lucky on the second person we stalked and asked! Thank you little sweet, old mexican man who drove a camry...we will forever be grateful! We arrived back in Houston FULLY exhausted around 3 am! It was ALL totally worth it though and we have decided to make it a tradition at the end of each summer (trust me, we'll need it)!!!!