I have twins!

*All vacation posts are posted, scroll down to check them out!!!





Today I went to the zoo with my friend Laura. She was wearing her CPOM shirt the one that says:

Yes, they are twins!

Yes, we can tell them apart.

Yes, our hands are full...full of love.

I'm glad they are mine and not yours too!

We have multiple blessings!

As normal when someone wears this shirt, people notice it. I think she got stopped 3 times by someone making comments. I remember when the boys were little getting the typical twin questions. For the most part they didn't bother me, I somewhat liked being a special mom with special kids...I had twins, something not everyone has!

Now, as the boys have gotten older and they are such very different boys with their own coloring you can't hardly tell that they are twins. Actually, you can't tell that they are twins and a part of me misses the stopping and answering questions. A part of me misses that special moment when someone is in awe at what I have. I know this is crazy but well its just me.. :) !

Vacation Statistics

Number of days on vacation: 10
Number of miles driven: 1,866 +
Number of times we ate at McDonalds: 2
Number of different hotels we stayed in: 3 plus a vacation home
Number of times we ate out: 15
Number of times we packed a lunch and took it with us: 3
Number of times we saw animals (the furry kind): 3
Number of tourist sites we visited: 8
Number of times we put on our swimsuits: 7
Number of times we cooked at the house, not counting breakfast: 1 dinner, 1 lunch
Number of times we went shopping: 4
Number of people in our group: 9
Amount of fun we had: tonsMi Tierra could be considered a tourist attraction unto itself...this is a restaurant we ate at one night for dinner. The food wasn't that great, but the decorations are what I went for.

Dinosaurs - Friday

Ken and Christy had already decided that they would be leaving Friday evening. They wanted to spend some time downtown before heading home. So we said goodbye and looked to see if we could find something to do. I wasn't quite ready to leave and go back to the house. We thought about going to the movies and seeing the new Toy Story movie, but decided instead to go to this dinosaur exhibit.

After checking out the dinosaurs we went back to the river walk to see it at night, but didn't stay long. We did have a return home trip to get ready for. What a pretty sight the river walk was at night!

Downtown San Antonio - Friday

Our last full day on vacation and we haven't been to downtown San Antonio yet...so today was the day. We were going to do true tourist things, visit the Alamo, ride down the river, and go to the river walk.

We were in store for another hot day, so off to the Alamo first. Now we can all say, "Been there, seen that, took the picture!" Last time Thomas and I visited we didn't get to go into the main building, because the line was so long. This time we were able to go in no problems, it was pretty interesting walking around inside and thinking about how this building had come under fire. The actually have the original doors inside and you can see the big bullet holes. We also walked through the little room where the women and children hunkered down during the attack. Very interesting, to see that part of history.

After visiting the Alamo, we went to the river walk to go on the river cruise boat ride. This is a nice ride down the river of the river walk area and shares some interesting facts about the river walk. Unfortunately, it was really hot on the boat and we couldn't enjoy it as much as we would have liked.

The scenery along the river walk is gorgeous. The vibrant colors and bustling of the people is so alive and fun. Its really great to enjoy in so many different ways!

After walking the river walk for awhile we went up to the main street level and came across this museum that had huge stuffed animals and tons of animal heads. We went looking for the Childrens Museum to occupy some time, but unfortunately the museum was closing in about 45 minutes and wouldn't have been worth the money for that amount of time.

So where to next? We weren't quite ready to eat so we asked around for a playground and found one about 10 blocks away...what a long hot walk! When we finally arrived the kids played for awhile before we decided it was time to head back for dinner. Notice how tired Tylers face looks! On the way back, sprinklers were on so Thomas and Ken ran and pulled the kids through them which gave them all laughs.

Our birthday tradition is the birthday person gets to chose what restaurant they want to eat at and today we were celebrating Christy's birthday. She very eagerly chose a restaurant called Dicks. She fully admits she has a warped sense of humor and said this place was right up her alley. I was a little fearful of this place, but was along for the ride!

This is not a typical restaurant in that they are not super sweet to you, catering to your every whim. They are rude to you and play jokes on you, but all in fun and they do get your food to you and cater to your needs even if they grumble.

A guy was going around making balloon hats for the kids...Maleah got a twirly hat, Tanner a knife hat, and Tapanga a heart hat. Tyler didn't want a hat, he is sensitive to noise and doesn't like the noise balloons make as you are moving them around.

One of the main things Dicks does is make these hats with sayings on them for the guests. We each got one of these. (They can be a little vulgar, don't read anymore if you don't want to see it.) Thomas' and Kens went together. Thomas' says "I love catching bubbles in my mouth." Where Kens says "I call my balls bubbles". Christy's says "All I want for my b-day is for the burning rash to go away!"

KG's says, "When I'm in the shower I think about Broke Back Mountain!"Most people going into this restaurant know how this restaurant operates. There was a group of tables that was celebrating a birthday over to the side of us and one of the people over there did not want to wear her hat, so she got the balloon treatment!Maleah got a hat that said, "My breath smells like dog poo!"

Moms hat read, "This ain't the first salad I've tossed!"

If you ask for napkins, they get a handful of them and throw them at you! I set Tanner up and told him to ask for napkins and this is what happened!I wish I had a picture of this, but if you say something about there needing to be more toilet paper in the bathroom they have a leaf blower hooked up to a wire. On the wire they will put toilet paper on it and turn the machine and blow the hole roll of toilet paper on you. Its pretty funny to watch.

I had lucked out and didn't look like I was going to get a hat, until someone said something to the waiter. My hat read, "Smoked more sausage than Jimmy Dean!"

They may have been rude and crude, but they do know how to cook! The food was delicious and dessert was also. I think they may have been a bit nicer to us because we had all the kids, but it wasn't as bad as I feared.

They must go through a done of paper and supplies, many people get hats and thrown napkins at!

Our whole group outside the restaurant on the river walk (mom had already thrown her hat away). Thomas and Ken walked along the river walk wearing their hats and it was funny to watch peoples reactions. Some people would start busting out laughing, while others looked so confused, and many others were like "you've been to Dicks".

Downtown San Antonio and the river walk is beautiful. We actually found stuff to do at the mall and came back down after dark and when all the lights are on its even prettier! What a great day and great place to spend time with family!

Enchanted Ranch

One of the main reasons for going to Texas was for cowboys...I know that sounds funny and no I wasn't looking for cowboys, but the boys were! They have been into cowboys and horses for a long while now and thought Texas was all about them! Knowing this, Mom found The Enchanted Ranch.


The Enchanted Ranch is a real life ranch that has the cowboy/Texas feel. It has been used for many movies and Oprah voted it as one of the best places for families (although I am not really sure why!).


The feel of this place was good, it felt like I was in another world...the cowboy world!

We were doing the dinner show and were told to not come before 5, but I wish we had gotten there earlier so we could explore a little more.

Tapanga got a bloody nose just as we pulled into the ranch, I am not sure what started it, but she got blood all over her! She ended up with a new shirt because of this and it took some of our time away, but she was ready to go once it stopped.

When we first arrived they had a horse and bull for the kids to ride/sit on.

We jumped on one of the last wagon rides to check out the land and saw many of the same animals we saw at the safari!

After riding the wagon ride, we went to eat. The food wasn't all that spectacular, but we had a good time listening to the singer and Tapanga did a cute little dance!

After, eating dinner it was time to head out to the show!

There was a group of old lady tourists from Chicago and a few other families, but not many other kids. One part of the show had the gun twirler pick a couple kids from the audience for a game, and Tanner got picked! He didn't want to at first because she had a gun!

Actually, this brings us to a funny part...the gun lady actually scared me! Her stunts with the horse didn't work out as planned and then shes all twirling the guns and trying to shoot balloons, but didn't actually shoot the balloons on the first try...it was scary! She says, "They are blanks, but they still hurt if you get shot with one!" Excuse me? :)

Back to Tanner...so he got picked for the game and he is up against another 5 year old (she is much bigger than Tanner!).

The object of the game was to be the pony express...he had to ride his horse around the barrels and pick up his mail sack, then he had to bring the mail back to the starting point.Off they go...

Tanner won, great job!

Another audience participation game came up and the person choosing the contestants came to our area looking for a participant...well we tried to get Grandpa at first, but then realized the birthday girl should participate and so Christi got chosen to pick up poo! She also won!

After riding the wagon ride, I had seen a sign about arresting someone in your party and thought, won't that be funny? So, we had Grandpa arrested!

In order to get out of trouble he had to preform "I'm a little teapot" in front of everyone!After the show we let the kids play in the kid area for a minute. The kid area was pretty neat, it had playhouses for the kids to pretend in and a play set to play on.

We couldn't go without petting the horse again!

After claiming our prizes at the gift shop we were one of the last to head out. We lucked out by getting one last pony ride! The ranch was a little bit hokey, but the kids had fun which was the most important thing, because this was for them!