More Fun in San Antonio

As always, we ate our way through Texas on our trip. I have to say that Alamo Cafe was disappointing, but the queso and tortillas I had every day at Mom's for a snack were wonderful so maybe it wasn't so bad after all. We had planned to eat at Freebirds in Austin before catching our flight home but we decided not to and we were so excited to find a Schlotzsky's at the airport. You'd think Chicagoland would have some wonderful food and maybe they do, we just haven't really found it yet. We are still hung up on our favorites from Texas and it's amazing to me how many places are not in the Chicago market. So many places are in Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, even Southern Illinois but not in the Chicago area. Why???

Anyway, Monday we ate at one of my most favorite Mexican places in the wide world...Mexican Manhattan. It's nothing fancy and it is now on the riverwalk but growing up it was never open to the river. You see, my mom ate here very often when she was pregnant with me because she worked at the bank across the street. I guess I had it so much in utero that I'm crazy for it. I have so many memories of going there growing up and my dad would do a coin flip with the owners to pay double our bill or pay nothing. My mouth is watering thinking about eating there, so enough about it...

We had some time to kill between eating and meeting some friends at Chick Fil A (we really did eat our way around Texas!) later that day so we did some sightseeing along the river walk. We had to take Emalyn to the Hyatt hotel to see where her mommy and daddy had their wedding reception almost 12 years ago.

We made another trip to the Alamo and this time went inside the Alamo. BOR....ING! My kids can now say they've been to and in the Alamo. Wonder if anyone in Illinois even knows what the Alamo is?!?

You can see Emalyn was very interested in our tour of the Alamo! She fell asleep. If she's like her mom, sister and Omie, she will not appreciate history.

The exit doors of the Alamo. One of my favorite parts of the Alamo visit was the gift shop where they had little sherriff badges with names on them. They had Alejandro, Jesus, Javier, Juan...only in San Antonio...made me laugh. No Cade, Maddi the way we spell it, or Emalyn. Oh well....

We did some shopping at one of the little Mexican stores. Emalyn tried on her first cowgirl hat. I think she likes it!

One of our favorite things downtown SA...the random blowing sidewalks. I have no idea why some of them blow air and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know where the air is coming from, but it's always fun to let your clothes and hair blow up. Emalyn wasn't so sure what to think. Maddi and Cade loved it.

Cade got a little lion puppet he named Jumper at the Mexican store.

Maddi got a cute little poodle she named Addison. We saw some other kids walking their puppets and we tracked down a store that had them so the kids could get one. The kids were so cute walking their little puppets around. We still had some time to kill in SA so we did some shopping for Aggie/Cowboy clothing before meeting some friends at Chick Fil A.

We met 3 of my friends from high school at Chick Fil A. Here are Beth's kids, Tyler and Katelyn, with Maddi and Cade. I love how kids barely know other kids or don't know them at all and they just start playing together and have so much fun. Maddi was trying to go home with Beth and Katelyn when we left.

Cade was showing Layla's daughter, Lindsey, his magnets. Lindsey is such a cutie!

Hard to believe all of us girls are all grown up with all these kids! We realized we're going to have our 20 year reunion in 3 years. 3 years! Beth with Tyler(5) and Katelyn (7). Me with Maddi, Emma, and Cade. Ashley with her Katelyn (almost 1),
Avery (8) and Brady(5) are in the front of the picture. Layla with Max (5) and Lindsey (3). It was so fun to see everyone and their adorable kids.

When Layla and her kids first got there, Lindsey came over and asked me if she could hold my baby. I let her and then she went and told Layla she held the baby. Layla thought she was just asking her if she could hold her and Layla said no way she could hold her. She was surprised to find out she had already held her! This was the first baby Lindsey held and she did so well and Lindsey and Emalyn were wearing matching clothes so we had to get a picture.

Love these girls! Thanks to facebook, I reconnected with Ashley. We were inseperable in 6th-9th grade and then we got busy with different lives and grew apart. It was so fun to see her again after all these years.

Great Aunt Shirley got some loving from Emalyn at Chick Fil A. I love the chunky baby dimples on Emalyn's elbow!

Emalyn and Omie.

We ended the day at Omie's house and the kids enjoyed their last time to play with Trey. Brett was having fun trying out getting some action shots with the new camera.

Maddi, Trey and Cade. The kids always have so much fun with Trey. We always enjoy seeing him and his family. The kids were worn out from another busy day and had to get some rest for our last day with Omie before flying home.