Birthdacation Part 2

...As soon as the Believe show was over, Micah passed out. He did really well for staying up 2 hour passed his regular nap time to see Shamu.

While Micah napped, Tom and I strolled around the park checking out the cooler exhibits to help the little man sleep a little more soundly without sweating to death. First, we stopped at the dolphin feeding tank. We opted to just watch. We wanted to save the fun and excitment for when the little man was awake. Next, we found an air conditioned spot with perfectly placed benches and a view of sting rays. And, we showed up just in time to watch the last feeding of the day. Below is a scuba diver hand feeding those deadly things. By the way, she was speaking to the crowd through a microphone in her mask. I thought that was pretty cool.

Just shy of the end of the sting ray feeding Micah was wide awake and less than thrilled to still be in his stroller. We decided to call it a day and made our way back to the hotel to rest up before dinner.

The riverwalk was a short walk (2 blocks) from our hotel. We had dinner at this terrific little Mexican restaurant right on the riverwalk and enjoyed a nice evening stroll around the town.

San Antonio Children's Museum


Saturday morning we decided to visit the San Antonio Children's Museum. The museum was only a few blocks away from our hotel in the downtown area which made it a convenient activity to spend some quality time with Micah, but most importantly it was an activity in air conditioning.

Boy in a Bubble

Pint-sized Grocery Store

Air Ball

Texas-sized Lite-Brite

Western Grocery Store

After our visit to the museum, we went back to the hotel so Micah could get a good nap before we made our return visit to Sea World. Tom was a very generous husband and father and volunteered to stay with Micah while he napped so I could go lay out by the pool and relax for a while. Thanks, Tom.

To be continued...

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NOTE: To all of our Illinois readers, we will be in Illinois July 8th thru July 11th. We hope to see as many of you as we can!

Birthdacation

Over a month ago when Tom asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I said I wanted to go see Shamu at Sea World. I've done Six Flags, Disney World, Universal Studios, and even Dollywood. I'd never been to Sea World though.

So.....Thursday afternoon we set out on our road trip to San Antonio for a long weekend to celebrate my last weekend as a 27 year old and my 28th birthday.

Friday morning when we finally made it through the line at the gate to Sea World, our first stop was at....drum roll, please....the playground. Knowing that we have a 21 month old to keep up with, we knew we weren't going to be able to do any of the rides. So, we tried to plan our day around all of the different shows. The first show on our agenda was the ski show and we had 30 minutes to waste before the show, so we let Micah burn off some energy at the playground.

Cool Vibrations Ski Show Clip

After the ski show we ran over to the seal, sea lion, and otter show.

Next we walked back across the park to see the Shamu Show: Believe

That's not all, but that's all for now. Afterall, it is my birthday today. I'll be back with more posts through the week. You'll be surprised what we crammed into 3 days...

Toy Story 3

Waiting in line for our tickets was the hardest part for Micah. I suppose he gets his patience gene from his equally impatient father. He fussed and squirmed in my arms, but we finally purchased my ticket. I was joyful that I wasn't forced to pay $7.50 for him too. Turns out that if he would "likely" sit in my lap, he doesn't need a ticket. Plus, I was concerned we would need to leave mid-movie because he wouldn't be able to sit still long enough to watch the whole movie.

We grabbed a coke for me at the concession stand and bobbled off to our seats. Talk about having my hands full. I had my purse on one shoulder overflowing with Micah's lovey (a small version of his blankey), sippie cup of ice water (Micah's new favorite drink), toddler bowl with spill-proof top filled with Fruit Loops, and all of my random stuff. My other arm supported Micah's back while he rode on my hip. My coke was in hand and somehow I had to figure out how to pick up one of those booster seats at the door. A kind man grabbed one for me and explained that he was all too familiar with my situation as he has 4 young boys at home. Thank you, kind man.

Whew, we made it to our seats just as the theater went black. From that moment on, Micah's eyes were fixed on the screen. I got him settled into his booster seat with his lovey across his lap, sippie between his legs, and his bowl on the arm rest. He didn't reach for anything until midway through the movie. He was loving it. Success! Towards the middle of the movie he turned to me and said "Mama" as he laid his hand on my forearm that was resting on the armrest. The look in his eyes said "Thanks, mom". My heart melted. The only other peep he made during the movie was during the climax as the characters were approaching the incenerator he said aloud, "Oh n-yo" in his sweet little boy voice.

He made it through the entire movie. No problems or fussing. And the picture above is the look on his face when it was all over. We even sat through a portion of the credits just to see bonus clips.

Last weekend while I was out doing some shopping I scoped out different stores to see which retail giant had the best deal on the Toy Story 3 toys. I thought it would be nice for Micah to have a toy to remember his first movie experience by. Ok, I know he'll probably never remember last Monday, but it was the sentimental thought on my part. So, anyway, to my surprise, the Disney Store in the mall had the best prices. All of the major characters were $15 a piece. My first guess was Target or Wal-Mart, but I was delightfully wrong. I was delighted because the Disney Store is only two stores down from the movie theater and made our shopping experience painless. I let him choose his toy and he took it to the register just like a big boy. Too bad getting him to put it in the bag to leave the mall didn't go as smoothly. We had a minor melt down in the mall, but we survived.

Since Monday night, Micah and Buzz, or Bu as Micah calls him, have been best friends. He even stopped carrying around his Lightning McQueen for a while. Big shocker!

Here are the two new pals Tuesday at lunch. Still inseperable.

I love Me and Micah Mondays!

Happy Father's Day

Catching Up

So, is anyone curious what we've been up to since all I've been blogging about is Costa Rica for that last couple weeks?

Well, Tom got the boat in the water for the first time. And it didn't sink. Success!

He still hasn't gotten anyone to look at the motor yet, but he's had some fun with it Joey Potter style.

Last Monday Micah and I spent the morning at the Dallas Arboretum. It was beautiful and HOT! The sun was scorching the earth at right about 100 degrees. I've heard they have a really great fall display as well. Maybe we'll make a return visit in October when it doesn't feel like a sauna outside.
[Micah has a serious obsession with cars lately. There's ALWAYS one in his hands. Always.]

Did I mention it was hot? Can you tell?

Also during the last week or so I've been doing a little painting. Micah's big boy room is now completely repainted [pictures soon] and we repainted the back wall of our living room. Again. Third times a charm. We like it. We really like it. [pictures soon too]



Saturday we took a family hike on the manicured trails at the Little Elm Park. We were expecting a real hike through the woods, but were surprised to find paved sidewalks crisscrossing through a few patches of trees and bushes. We made the best of it and wandered around for a half hour or so before the temperatures were almost unbearable.

For Father's Day we launched the boat on the lake bright and early for our maiden family voyage. Tom rowed us down the lake for a while and let the wind bring us back home while I sunned, Micah yelled at the birds, and Tom attempted to do some fishing. We enjoyed a bit of a lazy morning on the lake followed by a nice refreshing splash in the pool. Ahhhhh! I love summertime.

Also, our boat is still unnamed. We're taking suggestions.

Day 7 Goodbye

On Day 7 (Saturday), we said goodbye to Costa Rica. We had a great time and may go back some day. To be honest though, we still prefer Dreams resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It seems like we compare every vacation to our honeymoon and babymoon which were both spent at Dreams.

If you are planning to go to Costa Rica, I'd like to share a few things with you. We would definitely recommend the RIU resort. It's new (opened November 2009) and very clean. If we go back, I will definitely work on my Spanish before we get there (Why didn't someone convince me to take Spanish in high school?) We found that the only people that spoke fluent English were the other American vacationers. Also, be prepared to pay a departure tax at the airport before you can check in to your flight. It's $26 per person and has to be paid in cash. Good thing we didn't spend everything we had on souvenirs! Other than those two things, our vacation was perfect and everything we expected and hoped for. We had an excellent adventure we'll remember forever!

Day 6 Coco Beach

On our last full day in Costa Rica, we hopped into a small boat just off of the beach at our resort and took a 20 minute ride over to Coco beach. There isn't much to see there. It's an extremely small town with only one road. We did find about 20+ souvenier shops and managed to buy some Costa Rican coffee for Tom, a braclet made from exotic wood for me, and a wooden dump truck for Micah. For the rest of the 2 hour period we were there, we enjoyed ourselves at a couple restaurants.

Micah endured the ride while wearing the life jacket that day. Poor thing looks so uncomfortable.

Some of the homes along the coast near Coco beach

The center of town at Coco Beach

We kept Micah on a leash since we couldn't bring a stroller on the boat with us.

Here's one of the restaurants we stopped at. Tom liked it because the kitchen was inside the boat. Believe it or not, I made it an entire week without one Dr. Pepper. We did have an endless supply of Coke though. By the way, Tom bought me a can of Dr. Pepper in the Costa Rican airport for $5 while we were waiting on our plane to pick us up. Outrageous!

On the boat ride back to the resort, Tom was shielding Micah's face from the spray of the boat and the drizzling rain. In this picture you can see that Micah wanted to return the favor. How sweet!


After some lunch and a nap, we were back at the beach one last time.

Day 5 Palo Verde National Park

On Thursday (Day 5), we left the resort to ride down the river in this little boat to see some of the native wild life. We saw crocodiles, howling monkeys, iguanas, cows, bats and exotic birds.
But, before we got to this lovely boat, we had to endure an hour long bus ride through the middle of nowhere. And when I say the middle of nowhere, I mean nowhere. They didn't even have paved roads much less decent gravel roads. The rain the previous night left large gaping holes in the road, and our driver would swerve from left to right along the path to avoid the bumps when possible. I was very thankful to get to this boat!

Micah lasted about 10 minutes in the life jacket. I felt bad for him since it looked like it was choking him, and I let him free.


Looking closely at the bark of this tree, you will see a brown line down the center of the trunk. Just to the right of that brown line is a line of 9 bats hanging out.

Here are two baby crocodiles hanging out just at the edge of the water. The one at the top of the photo is a couple months old. The croc toward the bottom of the photo is about 3-4 weeks old.

This is a howling monkey. The tour guide said it was likely an outcast from the rest of the monkeys since it was alone. It was probably banished from the crowd due to a disease of some sorts. (So sad looking too)

That's an 8 foot croc hanging out just at the edge of the water soaking up the sun for energy and waiting on a snack to come running down for a drink of water.

An exotic bird...

An iguana with its original tail.

A cow.

This video shows how an old sugar cane press worked back in the old days.

Micah riding the bull that was running the sugar cane press. See, I told you he loves to ride animals.

Day 4 Continued

The next two videos make my heart happy!

...and after naptime we were back at the pool

For dinner we had reservations at the steak house again since it was so delicious the night before. The next few pictures were taken as a rain cloud started to roll in. As soon as we stepped foot into the restaurant, the bottom fell out of the sky. Good thing the resort provides an extra large umbrella to all of their guests.

(Believe it or not, this is the raw shot. No photo shop done on this one.)

Micah wouldn't let go of the umbrella, so we went with it... This is also the other of only 2 family photos we have from the trip.

That's all for Day 4!