Our Spring Break

So every year at this time, I start stressing. I have two girls with Spring bdays (Brooke in March, Brenna in April). They both want parties, they both want to invite every person they know and then I feel obligated to invite MY friends who have kids too. And next thing you know, we've maxed out the party place and spent way too much on a kid's bday. I have this thing with birthdays. I mean, I want them to be special for my kids, don't get me wrong... but I think that so many people feel obligated or expected to go way overboard on parties. I have been there. Feeling the need to have a big party at the gym or princess place or whatever. For the first few years, we had bdays at home, which was cheaper...but way more work on my part. Then we had a couple of parties at the gymnastics place and princess place. Way less work, but more expensive. And ugh.... dont' get me started on feeling obligated on who or who not to invite. You get the "I can't believe she didn't invite my kid" and also in the same breath..."ugh.. now we have to buy her kid a present". Can't win for losing, right???

So, when the girls came to us, on their own, asking to forego the parties and presents this year and instead take a trip to SeaWorld, we jumped on the chance! Probably just as much money (if not less) and no worries! Just fun. It helped that now that Brooke's getting older she doesn't care much for the party scene anyway, she doesn't have a lot of CLOSE friends and doesn't need (or want) any presents. And Brenna, for now, is just a follower, so she's good with whatever. LOL

I would've liked to have gone in between their birthdays to keep it symbolic to the cause. But with school schedules and photoshoots I have already scheduled, really the only chance was to go over Spring Break. Which is very close to Brooke's birthday...it'll just be harder to remind Brenna when hers comes around that we already 'celebrated'. (sort of)

Anyway, their only only 'requirement' for this deal was that we stay at least one night in a hotel. That's most fun always, isn't it???

So off we went. We also had to coordinate in between softball practices too! On our way up, we found the NICEST Burger KIng ever and stopped to eat lunch and play. Their playscape was so clean and HUGE!

Then once we got to the hotel, we checked in early and did some swimming in the indoor HEATED pool. We have come to learn that the heat is very important. Indoor pool doesn't always mean that its ok for swimming in cooler months. Lesson learned there a while back. ;) But this hotel was very nice - we had actually TWO bedrooms (within the same "room"), kitchen, living area..the whole shebang. And it was relatively inexpensive. It was an average cost hotel. And the heated pool was a BIG hit.

So after swimming (and you'll notice, the girls picked right back up where they left off last year with swimming!), we got changed, cleaned up and headed downtown San Antonio. I had been saving coupons for Spaghetti Warehouse so we ate there for dinner that night. Yum! (and cheap - BOGO free meals!)

After dinner, we visited the Riverwalk and decided to splurge a tiny bit both on a carriage ride (Brenna LOVES horses..really really LOVES horses) and an old timey photo (last one we had done, Brenna wasn't even alive yet, so it was fun to do one with her in it too!).

Then we went back to our room and crashed ready for our big day at SeaWorld the following day!

Stay tuned...