San Antonio ~ Cozumel ~ Houston Vacation

Fred and I went on a nice long vacation. Long for me because I had eight (8) days off work. Sweet.

We started out flying into San Antonio. We actually boarded the plane early in Las Vegas and as we approached the runway the engines shut down and the pilot said "We are waiting for clearance due to weather conditions. It will be about 30-40 minutes and we are #19 for take off. There were ominous black clouds in the sky.

It was about 1 1/2 hours before we finally took off.

We got to go to church with Scott and Jess. I love attending the wards my children are members of. It's nice to be able to picture them there and meet some of their good friends. Jess made arrangements to attend Relief Society with me. She serves in Young Women's. So here we are. 

Monday morning Scott arranged a tour for us at the Toyota Plant. They only make Toyota Tundras and Tacomas. It was very interesting and a fun new experience. We got to ride on little trams in the plant and wear safety helmets. These pictures are all in the "museum" portion of the property. There was no photography allowed in the actually plant where they build the trucks.

There were several cars halved so you could see the inner workings. Jess is in the very beginning stages of pregnancy. We didn't plan well this day to come with snacks for Jess. She was a trooper though. It's already muggy and warm and we did a lot of walking. 

I love the big map of Texas.

After our tour of the Toyota plant, we headed for the River Walk back in town.

Here we are eating outside. It was a Mexican Restaurant (surprise?) Tons of Mexican food places in San Antonio.

Here is the stage area where they filmed part of Miss Congeniality. 

This is across from that stage.

We invited Scott and Jess to come and stay with us at the Resort in New Braunfels which is about 20 minutes from San Antonio. Here we are playing the Daly Family card game "Hand and Foot". 

We went into the Historic district and had lunch at the Gristmill Restaurant. It was yummy and very scenic. Most all of the seating was outside along the Guadalupe River. 

It was actually kind of drizzly on this day. We walked around and looked at a few of the shops.

 I'm not remembering the order of what days we did what. 

This is Buc-ee's - The New Braunfels gas center is the largest convenience store in the world at 68,000 square feet. The store features 120 fuel pumps, 83 toilets, 31 cash registers, 4 Icee machines, 80 fountain dispensers, tubing and water gear for the Guadalupe River.

After this adventure, we went to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. We went to a theatre that serves you food at your seat. Scott ordered us popcorn. They bring it in a big stainless steel bowl. It was the best popcorn EVER. I also enjoyed a big diet coke. It was a fun movie.

On Wednesday night Scott and Jess both had Mutual and Scouts to attend. So they packed up and went home after we had dinner. This is the room we stayed in. It's a WorldMark property. We have a trial membership at WorldMark so that is why we had this particular vacation planned. It was 3 nights at this resort and a 4 night cruise to Cozumel. 

All the units are two story with 2 or 3 bedrooms. It was really nice and fit our needs just right. Although Scott and Jess had twin beds. They were upstairs and we had the master bedroom downstairs.

A very nice big kitchen. We only at breakfast and one dinner here. The plan was to have a big lunch out and then snacks in the evening.

While we were on vacation, Dallas experienced a hail storm with hail the size of tennis balls so when we called to confirm we were going to pick up our rental car, the car rental guy said hopefully they would have one for us. Seems all the rentals from here were shipped up to Dallas for all the people who needed rentals while their cars were in the shop for repair from the damage caused by the hail storm. We had reserved a Fusion size car, but ended up with this Corolla. It was certainly adequate for our trip to Galveston. Galveston is about 225 miles from New Braunfels.

Here we are driving through Houston . Neither of us have been through there before.

Finally on the ship. We cruised on Carnival Liberty. About 2,900 passengers. 

Here is Fred.

This is Deck 9 where everything happens. It wasn't quite this crowded all the time, but pretty close. We did not go swimming at all. 

This picture is taken from the glass elevator.

I was happy that this is the cruise line that makes the cute towel animals. Every night when they come in and turn your bed down, they leave one. I think they are pretty cute. This is a swan although now it looks like a snake. But the towel at the base is the wings.

Mr. Elephant

Bear cub?

Selfie before dinner.

Our shore excursion in Cozumel was off roading in a four passenger Razor, two man speed boat and snorkeling. Here we are out on the water. Neither of us went snorkeling. The reviews for snorkeling were only "eh" so we just sat in the boat for about 20 minutes while some of the group went snorkeling. The razor was fun, but really dirty and dusty. I felt pretty gross by the time we got back into town. It was bad enough that I didn't even want to shop. Now that is bad!

Back on the ship we took a picture of Cozumel. The water was beautiful 

It's too bad that the cruise ships don't have time to clean the windows before each cruise. They are always streaked and dirty.

We finally got off the ship. I think because Houston had just had flood rains the night before and still pouring at this time, getting the go ahead from shore was very delayed. We ran through the pouring rain to get to our shuttle. Pictures do not do justice to the intensity.

I kept trying to get pictures of passing cars to show how high up on the wheel wells the water was, but no luck. This is the splash from our own tires.

When we got off the ship, we already knew our 2:00 pm flight was cancelled. We got to the airport and they put us on a 7:45 pm flight. We stayed at the airport from 11:30 until about 4:30 when we found out the 7:45 pm flight had also been cancelled. By that time so many other travelers had already filled the nearby hotels that Southwest has $79 deals with. We ended up at a Hilton Doubletree. At this point, I'm just happy we get a nice hotel and I get another day off work.

It was a very nice room. When we checked out in the morning Fred flashed the card that the Southwest employee gave him that said $79 dollar room. Up to this point Doubletree had been saying "those rooms are all full". Glory be - they adjusted our bill and instead of $221 it was $92. He was much happier. 

On the drive home from Las Vegas it was the first time that even that desolate landscape looked beautiful to me. I was just so happy to be headed home. When we pulled into the valley of St. George, it was really the first time that I felt like it was home and I was so grateful. 

It was a long vacation and I was ready to be home. 

It was so wonderful to spend time with Scott and Jess. So that would be the best highlight of the trip. 

My other favorite things were the speed boat and the unlimited yummy swirl ice cream on board.

Grandsons and a little General Conference

This weekend Corinne and her family came down for a visit.

It was General Conference Weekend so my preparations consisted of gathering activities for the boys to do during the broadcast of Conference. 

This time we opted for setting up a tent so the three big boys could sleep outside. 

It worked pretty good even though the boys did say they got a little cold. 

 On Saturday morning, Corinne and I went and got our hair cut. All the boys, Ben and Grandpa went down to our neighborhood park to play while we were gone.

Our traditional pizza from Costco was lunch and Corinne and Ben went to Qdoba for lunch.

After Henry had a good nap, we packed the kids up and went to the Dinosaur Discovery Site here in town. http://www.dinosite.org/dinosaur-discovery-site/ Dinosaur tracks were found on this very spot and they basically built this facility around the site. They still do work on the site "in house" so you can watch them work.

 Most of the displays had signs that said DON'T TOUCH.

 Thank goodness there was stuff the boys could touch.

 Here you can see how they build the facility around the actual ground where things were dicovered.

 See the workers stuff left out. I guess these guys don't work on Saturdays.

 After walking through the interior area, there is an "interactive" room. 

The boys were more than content to do the activities here. We still had the outdoor park to check out.

 There were stencils for rubbing and tracing.

 Origami table. It was pretty obviously the guy at the check in who had the personality of a rock, did not bother to go and do any cleaning up during the day. The room was a big mess so I cleaned everything up before we left.

 This room also had lots of artifacts in glass cabinets to look at.

 Digging

 Posing

 Making your own dinosaur tracks

 Here Garrett is brushing through the sand to find the fossils.

 Under grandpa's watching eye.

 It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

 More fossil brushing

 I printed out copies of the activities from LDS.org for the three big boys. Bought them markers, fine tip markers, and colored pencils. Stickers and candy for Bingo was also included.

The boys were involved in coloring and doing the activities so we enjoyed watching the morning session of conference. Saturday night we also watched the Priesthood Session at home.

 This table and chairs that Garrett and Spencer are sitting at was made for Corinne and Shannon by their Grandma and Grandpa Daly when they were about ages 2 & 4. 

It has had lots of use over the years. Just right for grandkids.

 Henry played with cars and ate his bowl of bingo candy. 

 Since it was a short weekend visit, Corinne and Ben wanted the boys to spend more time playing with us than watching all the sessions of conference. We can all watch and read them again. 

We went to a park that had trees for some shade. It was about 80 degrees on Sunday afternoon. It wasn't as shady as I thought. I sat on the bench in the shade and most everyone else ventured out.

 Henry pretty much stayed on the big toy underneath in the shade.

 Garrett also hung around me in the shade.

 All three of the boys play the piano, but Garrett also plays the violin. He came prepared to give us a little recital. We walked down their Great Grandparents the Dalys to do that. 

So that was our weekend. The boys are at a good age where we can enjoy playing board games and card games too. We played UNO and Richard played Tripoley with his parents and Grandpa. I played Score Four with Spencer. He beat me. 

It was a short visit, but packed with lots to do.

It was a fun time!