Thanksgiving in San Antonio

On our way to San Antonio to spend a week with there so we can be with Patrick in the evenings and on Thanksgiving.

We started our first day visiting all the missions in the San Antonio network of missions. We wandered around the sites, read the different kiosks, geocached, and explored.

 

 

Geocaching takes us to the most unique places! We saw there were some trails connecting Mission Espada towards the San Antonio River trails. There were geocaches on them, and they led us to some interesting art installations.

 

 

Ended up using this for our Christmas card photo

Exploring the river trails

Our airBnB had a treadmill. The kids would wake up and ask if they could walk on the treadmill while I was preparing breakfast or packing our lunches.

 

We spent our 2nd day in downtown San Antonio. We started with visiting the Tower of the Americas and all the interesting installations around it.

 

View from the top

Picnic at the base. We also watched their "4D" movies but were not impressed.

Geocaching as we explored

 

This mama duck with her ducklings held our attention for quite a while.

 

We've walked miles at this point, yet the kids have plenty of energy to stop at a park.

Geocaching down by the Riverwalk. We were also scoping out whether or not we wanted to try to come down for the Christmas light parade that would open later that week. But we decided in the end that it was a bit too much for us.

Stealth skills. She's snagging a geocache right next to these people. They have no idea.

 

We ended out day at the final San Antonio Mission - the Alamo. Austin could not be pried away from all the information kiosks so he's missing from most of my photos.

 

 

We started Thanksgiving day by going to a movie theatre and seeing Wild Robot. Then we went out after lunch to geocache in a park with many hiking trails. 

 

Teaching the kids to play Spades after Patrick came home from work and dinner. Colleen needed a decent barricade to lay out all her cards.

The kids enjoyed the hiking so much that they voted to spend Friday morning out in the same park.

 

Our Santa Barbara Zoo pass gave us discounted entry into the San Antonio zoo. So we went in the late afternoon to see the evening Christmas lights.

First time seeing rhinos in a zoo!

 

On Saturday, we headed back to the same park for the morning.

 

 

Patrick finally had an evening where the unit could be left for a few hours. We took the kids to a Main Event location for hours of an indoor ropes course, playing billiards, and a dozen games of laser tag.

 

 

We love family laser tag. These are the best memories.

We took the kids to Chuys to relive our grad school days.

On Sunday afternoon, I took the kids to the Doseum in San Antonio (yay free reciprocal entry!)

This big kid sand pit was a huge hit. There were no other kids here, and we stayed for over a half-hour.

 

 

 

Tailgating picnic

The Spy Academy was the highlight of the museum visit. When we had come previously, the kids were too young to participate. Now they were old enough to understand the puzzles and system. We spent over an hour in this exhibit, allowing the kids to complete all the puzzles.

 

Headed down to the Riverwalk with Dad.

 

More spades after dinner

Our flight didn't leave until the late afternoon on Monday. The kids and I headed to the Japanese gardens for a morning visit. It was phenomenal and a highlight of our entire trip.

Of course we snagged the geocaches there.

Then we rode the San Antonio zoo train.

And passed a little more time hiking around the trails near the zoo.

Our first flight with mom + kids. They were amazing! We left San Antonio sad to be without Patrick, but grateful for the week of spending dinners with him and exploring together.