Sea World

We visited San Antonio a couple weeks ago for my 10 year high school reunion and had a great time visiting Sea World!! I think David might have been more excited about going than Vince since he knew what was instore for us.



First stop, feeding the dolphins!! Vince fed the dolphins a bunch of little fish. They would just come up to you and open their mouths. If you didn't feed them right away, they left and found someone else who would give them fish. It's a pretty good deal for Sea World, make the visitors pay for the food and then feed the dolphins for them... no need to hire extra workers!! It was so much fun for Vince though. He got close and personal with them, it was also David's first time feeding the dolphins as well :).

Next stop, Shark and Coral Reef exhibit. I'll spare most pictures of the actual tanks because they pale in comparison to my next post of the aqariums at the Atlantis in the Bahamas, but these two pictures are some of my favorite. I like to think that by going to Sea World, we were gearing Vince up for the cruise to the Bahamas that we were going on a couple days later...

Stops 3 and 4 were the 4D movie and the Azul show (Balooga whales / Seals / diver performers). For some reason, Vince always puts on his glasses upsidedown... sunglasses and shown here, 3D glasses!! He didn't like the 4D aspect of the show much... I mean, who really likes water shooting in your face? I don't have good pics of the Azul show, but you can see in the picture of Vince watching how much he enjoyed it!!!

We saved the best for last... SHAMU!!! Did you know Shamu / Killer Whales were part of the dolphin family?? Fun fact we learned. This show is always good. Needless to say Vince loved it. The shows funnel all guests into the gift shop afterward so kids can beg for parents to buy things.....

Who can say no to this??

Bonus video 1: Vince loved this little Shamu so much... he also kept throwing it in the air because he wanted to see it flip like he saw!

Bonus video 2: watching the rollarcoasters... which he said are trains.. aren't they though? A bunch of cars connected together on a rail?? I can't wait until he's old / tall enough to ride rides like this. Visiting Sea World will be a whole new experience!!

Summertime = Fun with Daddy!

Vince has had a lot of fun hanging out with David this summer... and David needs to get in shape for the Disney marathon early next year... so David and Vince spent time doing some workouts a couple weeks ago... well, actually David was just trying to workout on his own and Vince kept wanting to get in the action. He is a good 3o lb weight!

He also tried to do situps and pushups.. it's so funny how he mimics everything we do..

That same day, David was playing golf on the Wii... Vince ran to the hall closet, grabbed one of his golf clubs, and started playing along side next to him... he just wants to be like daddy!!!

Moving on from sports to trains... We've been wanting to ride the TRE to Fort Worth for sometime now. The 5th of July we tried. Unfortunately it wasn't running due to the holiday weekend. So we did the next best thing, went to a kiddie place called the Indoor Safari park that had a train ride inside. Vince wasn't digging it as much as we thought he would... he cried and clung to David!!

Vince loves summertime with Daddy, although you can't tell in the above pic! Next posts... from vacation 2010.. stay tuned...

Staycation

Every summer we do a family vacation. Last year was Maui. We had beautiful beaches there, a ton of family with us, great views, sunrises, sunsets, waterfalls, snorkeling, a WEDDING...... How do we plan a vacation better than that?? How?? well...... we don't.

Since we couldn't top that, we decided to try something new. Do something not many people do. Save a ton of money and keep our level of fun at the same high. We had a "staycation". A real one. We packed our bags and headed to my sister's house, who lives 20 miles away for an extended weekend. We were joined by my parents and other sister's family. All in all, we are a big pack of 11, all staying in one house.

DAY1

Friday started out at Babes restaurant. Where great food comes on big plates and you can dance the hokey pokey. No really, the food was great and Jess and V did the hokey pokey.

Making the place even better was a real train outside. Vince loved the train (but of course). While we were looking at a stationary train, a real one with tons of freight cars came rushing by. He was in awe. He kept talking about how the train went "honk" (pic below).

"Honk"

"Look over there, it's a bird, a plane... no, it's a train!"

"We're so handsomeeee" (Vince sings that all the time)

Family photo, and by family, I'm including the train.

"BIG Train"

After the train show, we went bowling. I don't have many pictures from here, but I do have this one, showing the winner (don't know how that happened) and one of Vince playing the jump rope game he loves... we were supposed to do laser tag but the night got away from us.

DAY 2

The next morning we woke up and headed to Lake Texoma where luckily, they had a boat that fit us all!

The Three Amigos

"Mommy makes him wear this silly lifejacket, UV ray shirt, hat, and lots of sunscreen "- Vince

Our little family

Parents of the Three Amigos..

It's no Maui, but this sand will do..

We took turns getting pulled in this raft. Warren and I had the most fun. But Vince really didn't like people in the raft. He was crying the whole time and just wanted everyone in the boat. Look at his scared little face :(.

Luckily he loosened up and joined us in the water later.

It was a great day and tired most of us out.

I said most, but not all!! The three amigos had enough energy to have round 2 of fun in the pool back at the house. Vince can jump in with no help if he has the life jacket on. He ended up pulling grandma into the pool and she had a blast with her three grandkids.

The rest of us dry folk made smores. "Smore what?" (Get it?? Sandlot reference).

DAY 3

The next day (Father's day) we hung out all day at Hawaiian Falls. We had a private cabana as our little headquarters so we could take turns relaxing. Here's a pic of daddy and Vincey on Father's Day 2010 and also one of my dad and V from Corpus (because it's grandpa's day too!).

We did say our farewells that night. But not before we celebrated Jess's birthday which was the next day. Vince helped her blow out the candles. Everyone's in this pic but the photographer (me!). I think I need to photoshop myself in. Can anyone teach me photoshop??? Anyone? Anyone?

Beach weekend

I've been bad about updating this blog. So instead of trying to catch up with what's been going on.... I'm just going to start in the here and now and try to back track later (this is how I never got around to posting my July 2009 Maui pictures.. maybe I'll do that too).

This past weekend Vince and I headed to Corpus with my parents and newphew and met a whole lot of family down there. It's the first time we have seen many of them since my grandmother, Memi, passed last month. It's important for us all to keep in touch as we feel like Memi was the glue that held us all together. All in all I think we had 17 family members there. Not bad for a trip that was planned in less than one week.

The original reason my cousins and Aunts were coming in from Laredo was to celebrate the 7th birthday of my cousin's daugther. Vince loves playing with all his cousins. He does everything they do which could be good or bad :/. Here the kiddos are at the birthday party after a full day of beach and pool (we had to wait for the bday girl to wake up from her 3 hour nap!). Six of my grandmother's 13 great grandchildren are shown here.

Unfortunately the beach was full of seaweed shown in the pic below with my newphew. That didn't stop us from hanging out there all day long and building sand castles... I mean sand trains (which grandma unknowingly bulldozed with an ice chest).

In addition to the beach we spent a lot of time in the various pools at the condos we were all staying at. Vince is such a water baby. He loves showing off his swimming skills - he can currently stay under water for about 10 seconds and swim about 6 feet. Recently I have been making him wear a life jacket because he's a little too comfortable sometimes. Luckily, he's a good sport about it and is now enjoying floating on his own.

And here are some more random pictures from the weekend. Vince really loves his grandma, grandpa, and cousin!!!