Animals & Boat Rides!

Julia and I slept until almost 10:00 this morning! I woke up at 9:35 and she was still snoozing away, but she woke up shortly after that. We are going to have a rude awakening when I have to go back to work in a week and a half!
We lazed around the hotel for a little bit before we got dressed and headed out for lunch. Monday night we stopped by the Buckhorn Saloon to see what it was all about. They had a ton of animals that captured Julia's attention so I decided to walk down there and eat lunch.

All the animals kept her entertained during lunch, she kept asking if she could pet the moose which she was calling a goose! All through lunch she wanted to go up stairs and see the monkey, so after lunch we bought a ticket and went upstairs. As soon as we got upstairs she immediately freaked out and wanted me to hold her and asked to go home! We walked through, but she didn't enjoy it. Of couse as soon as we got out she asked to go again!

When Julia woke up from her nap this afternoon she was wondering around the hotel room. She found her sun hat that I brought and put it on and said "Let's go to the beach!". I told her that we would go back to the beach, but probably not until after Baby Charlotte was here. She stood there and thought about it for a moment, complete with her finger on her chin, and said "Well, I guess that will work"!

This evening we went downstairs for "happy hour" while Michael worked on his assignments for the night. We had some popcorn and a drink. When Julia got tired of eating the popcorn we worked on our shapes. She can recognize a circle, triangle, heart, star and square. She asked me to make an octogan, but I couldn't make it with our limited amount of popcorn!

When Michael was done with his homework we walked down to The Rainforest Cafe for dinner. Julia was hesitant of the animals at first, but warmed up to them pretty quick. When we got up to leave I tried to get her to go see the elephant and gorillas, but she wouldn't get too close. She did like the alligator though.

After dinner we walked down the Riverwalk. When Julia and I go out during the day I put her in the stroller because it's easier for me to manage by myself. There are a lot of little waterfalls and fountains on the Riverwalk and she always asks to have her picture made by them, so when we got to the first one tonight I took her picture. She wasn't extremely cooperative though, she was more interested in trying to play in the water! 

 She walked up and down the entire Riverwalk on the flower bed border with her arms out and every person we passed by she told them "I practicing my beam". Of course they all thought it was precious.

 Then when she got tired of "practicing the beam" she just plopped right down and waved and said "hey" to everyone who walked by. And this is exactly why I have to put her in a stroller!

Julia has been asking to ride the boat every time we've been on the Riverwalk and we promised her we would ride it before we left, so we decided to go tonight. She loved waving at all the people and looking for the fish and ducks.

 Our hotel from the Riverwalk 

There was an Army band playing on the stage on the Riverwalk. (This is the stage from Miss Congenitally) 

And a blurry family photo, but it's the best we got! 

Last night was a late night for Julia. I'm hoping tonight is not a repeat, but since she has been runnign around the room with her hat on saying "Yee haw, cowboy" and she's currently trying to brush Baby Charlotte's teeth I'm not too optimistic!

Remember the Alamo!

Julia woke up especially early this morning, like before Michael's alarm even went off! We got up and got breakfast and did some laundry while we waited on Michael to get out of class at lunch. This is the view out of our hotel room, glad we didn't have to pay extra for the view. :)

Julia's favorite hotel activity has been playing with the phone. She took it off the hook before we left for the day and it was beeping when we got back!

 When Michael got done with class we headed downtown. The refrigerator in our room has frozen all our food so instead of the quick lunch we had planned we grabbed some lunch at Pat O'Brein's (I had the mighty muffelleta and it was yummy!) and set of exploring.

Our first stop was The Alamo. Not long after we got there they had a history talk in the courtyard. We decided to listen to it since we admittedly did not have a lot of knowledge about The Alamo.

Bob - The History Buff

The Alamo

After The Alamo we headed across the street to the River Walk. We started off with the River Walk boat tour.

A statue of St. Anthony. He is the saint of children and lost items. He's also the namesake of the city.

JuJu Bean enjoying the boat ride.

Julia & I on the boat ride. She kept trying to take the necklaces and bracelets from the little girl next to us!

When we got off the boat tour we headed inside the RiverCentre Mall to cool off some. They had a children's play area so we let Julia run around for a little while. The area was set up to be a mini river walk with a river on the floor and a river boat, Alamo, bridge, tree and armidillo(?) play pieces. When Julia had a close call with an older girl we decided it was time to move on. (The girl was climbing up the outside of the tree and lost her footing and was thisclose to kneeing Julia in the back of the neck as she fell. Luckily Michael was standing right there and caught the girl before she hit Julia.)

 

We made our way down the river walk and headed to the Tower of Americas. It was nice to get a bird's eye view of the city, but it was a long walk in the hot sun to get there!

Julia loved the glass elevator. She's fearless!

After a quick wardrobe change for Julia we headed back up the river walk to find some dinner. We go t a table on the river at Rita's. Michael and I loved the food and Julia loved all the people watching and things going on!

Our Family

Our view up the river at dinner

Our dinner guests.  Julia kept looking over her high chair and waving at the birds on the ground and saying "hey". It might be the cutest thing I've ever seen. It was at least the cutest thing I've seen since this morning.

A mariachi band came by and played us a song (for tips of course). Julia wasn't completely sure what to think. She would listen for a minute, then turn around and hold her hands out to Michael or me to pick her up. When we wouldn't get her out she would turn her attention back to listening.  

When we got back to our hotel about 8:00 Julia was deliriously tired. I gave her her bottle and she would just walk around in a circle and give me the cutest grin. When Michael was trying to get her to sleep she would sit up and shake her head like she was trying to shake the sleep off. It was quite hilarious!

Julia is asleep now and Michael and I are trying to get our game plan together for tomorrow. I think we're heading up to New Bruenfels, a German town about 30 minutes away!