July recap

We spent the 4th of July on the lake... our favorite!

7/11 = free slurpees! Yumm!!

Our softball team, All About That Base, won first place in the bronze division of our league.  Its the first time a team I coached won, so that was pretty awesome!  And with that accomplishment came my retirement from the (co-ed) sport I love.  It was a hard, sad choice, but I have no doubt it will be a good one!

We took a week long trip to New Braunfels, San Antonio, Austin/Roundrock, and Kerrville/Fredricksburg.  It was super fun with alot of interesting stops.  First up was my Aunt and Uncle's house in New Braunfels.  They hadn't met Mack yet, and Thomas and I hadn't seen them in quite a while.  This was the beautiful sunset from their pool.

Our first stop in San Antonio was the Alamo.  Thomas just finished Texas history in 4th grade and really wanted to see it.  So that was how we started our day.  He was super excited to take a walking tour around the outside of the Alamo to learn more of the history.  Then we walked around inside the Alamo, and finally finished with a stop at the gift shop (probably his favorite part of the day!).

Next up was a trip to the Natural Bridge Caverns.  We loved looking at all the different formations.  This room was called the Cathedral Room.  

The is the only handrail formation in the world (?).  They built the handrail without knowing that the dripping was still occurring here.  Now a formation has formed on the handrail (and you are not able to use this handrail or touch it).

We spent the next 2 days at Sea World and Aquatica (Sea World's water park).  These pictures are not in order of how we viewed the park, but give you a good idea of what all we saw!  We had a ticket where we could go back and forth between the two parks.  It was a great way to do it, because we were able to ride some rides and see some shows at Sea World, and then go cool off until the night shows.  

They were working on training some of the dolphins as we walked by.  Beautiful!

This guy was hilarious prior to the show!  He was splashing everyone with water.  Soooo glad we sat well away from the splash zone!

This show was pretty funny too.  It was seal and sea lions.  It even had an otter in it.  We laughed alot!

The Shamu show was amazing!  From what we understand, Sea World will no longer include a Shamu show at the park, so we are glad we got in while they still did!

Our favorite show was a show with different animals that had been rescued.  They had dogs, cats, chickens, birds, and even a pig!  It was hands down all of our favorites.... and I didn't get one picture!

After 2 days of Sea World and Aquatica, we were ready for a good (not fast food) dinner.  With the help of some friends back in The Colony, we were able to find a traditional Mexican food restaurant.  The atmosphere was one of kind and the food was amazing!

After San Antonio, we moved on to Austin.  This is the view off Congress Bridge.  At sunset, thousands upon thousands of bats (yes BATS) fly out from under the bridge to begin looking for their dinner.  It is an amazing site to see, and this picture does it absolutely NO justice!  However, the small black cloud to the left of the tree just above the buildings are the bats flying.

We also toured the capital building.  Again, having just finished Texas history in school, Thomas was thrilled.  We took a walking tour again and then wandered a little on our own.  Thomas loved to stand and listen to the other tour guides.

While in Austin we also found this great Museum.  It was probably our favorite one we went to.  It had several vehicles from all the different wars (including a MASH helicopter) and different weapons used.  Thomas was in Heaven when we found a Sherman tank!

One night we loaded up and headed to Round Rock to catch a Baseball game.  The teams real name is Round Rock Express.  Its a Triple A team for the Texas Rangers.  This night, they were playing as the Round Rock FireAnts, which apparently is one of the names they considered when originally naming the team!

Finally, we headed to Kerrville to stay with Mack's dad for a night.  We went to a hill in Kerrville that has this amazing cross.  Its HUGE and a beacon for all who drive into town.  

Our final day of the trip we stopped in Fredricksburg.  We walked through several of the cute little shops and ended the day at the National Museum of the Pacific War.  Lets just say we did not allot near enough time for that!  Its a huge museum and kinda overwhelming.  We did out best to see what we could see until they closed, and then loaded up with promises of coming back with more time someday.  

And that brings us to the close of July.  Next up... wedding planning!!!!