So after two years, can you consider something an Annual get together? I don't know, but I do know that for the second year in a row, we have gotten together with my parents and all my siblings for the weekend over Memorial Day. This year, we all met at my brother Scott's house down in San Antonio. It was so much fun, although some of the plans we meticulously spent weeks trying to plan had to change spur of the moment because of all the downpours that occurred while we were there. But we made it work and everyone had a great time. Hopefully you like more pictures than words, because there will be a ton that go with this post so here it goes:
We arrived in town on Friday night, which happened to be the 24th - my birthday. So I got to pick where to eat for dinner and I chose Mimi's Cafe. I hadn't been to one of those since we lived in California, so I was excited for something different. I got a picture of all the grandkids together after dinner that I thought it was super cute.
After eating, we decided to walk around the Bass Pro Shop which was next door to the restaurant. I love those stores! They have such fun picture spots. So of course, I took a ton of pictures. The kids thought the man hanging upside down was really funny.
We loved walking around inside the store where we could see all the stuffed animals and also the live fish. I love Aubrey's pose in this picture. She was doing this for multiple shots.
I love telling the kids to act scared in front of some of the bigger animals. Here, in front of the fighting elk and the mountain lions they gave some pretty convincing faces.
I was finally able to get Taryn in one picture with all the cousins.
Abby kept requesting to have her picture taken in front of things. I loved her faces. She's such an actress!
Tessa and Aubrey howled to the moon like this carved wolf.
There was a waterfall and walkway outside the store as well, so we took pictures there too. This is one of my all time favorites of me and Tyler. A perfect picture to mark my 33rd birthday!
These ones of me and the girls turned out really cute too. Too bad I couldn't get Tyler to stick around longer to be in more pictures. I was lucky I got the one with him and me.
A visit to the San Antonio Zoo was on our itinerary, but then it started to rain...and it didn't stop. We finally decided to give it a try, but when we got there we found out they had closed because of flooding. This was the park area across from the entrance to the zoo where you could see the tops of picnic tables and trash cans, but everything else was under water. It was crazy. Grandma and Grandpa even had a hard time meeting us there because they kept getting detoured because of flooded streets in the downtown area.
Instead of the zoo, we ended up walking the mall and the Riverwalk. We were worried that it would be crazy busy because it was Memorial Weekend, but it wasn't too bad. We stopped for a few pictures along the way and at the end. I let the girls give me a funny face to keep them happy.
We got one picture of the entire family. It was taken on my new phone (which was a birthday present) and the picture quality was awesome.
We spent an evening at the Incredible Pizza Company where we ate a buffet dinner and played games that included arcade games, kiddie rides, and some bigger attractions like mini-golf, go karts, and mini-bowling. We spent a lot of our time with the girls in the kiddie ride section.
Even Taryn took her turn on the rides and loved them.
We ended up at the zoo the following day and only got rained out for the first couple minutes we were there. Afterwards, the weather was great and we had a fun time checking out all the animals. We found these huge blocks outside a kid's discovery area, so I had to get pictures of the girls by them.
There was a little beach area with a small stream that you could wade in, but with all the rain, we were watered out, but the girls still wanted to play in the sand.
Luckily, the cooler weather made it easier to take pictures on the metal animals throughout the zoo. Most had signs near them warning that they might be hot due to the sunshine, but we had no problems. Uncle John didn't mind being in our pictures either.
Aubrey had to have her picture in front of her favorite animal - the flamingo! I decided to get all three cousins together. These girls are each 6 months apart, and it was fun to see them playing and interacting together.
Here's the closest picture I was able to get of everyone. It's missing half of my family (who were in the gift shop) and Nevla, but I couldn't let the opportunity slip by when this many people were sitting together.
The time spent at Scott and Nevla's house was also planned in advance and there wasn't a minute wasted. They were awesome hosts who planned Minute to Win It games (which were a ton of fun and all on my video camera instead of this camera), buckets of fun activities for each kid with things like puzzles, coloring books, and crafts, a cookie bar where the kids were able to form and decorate their own cookies, and of course games, the wii, and movies.
Their house also backs up to a huge field that's full of cows, goats, and horses, and they feed them occasionally. So the kids had a blast seeing all the animals up close and getting up the courage to feed them with their own hands.
Even Taryn liked to see all the animals, as long as they didn't get too close to her.
We had such a fun time and really hope it truly becomes an annual thing for every year. We love getting together with our family!
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