Packing

 The kids received luggage last year for Christmas and they LOVE packing their stuff. I always double check to make sure they have everything they need because they pack some pretty interesting stuff. I was loading the car to go to Grandma and Grandpa's and here is what I found in Ethan's luggage.

I guess you never know when you need chocolate chips and peanuts!

Japanese Garden and Museum

 We were trying to figure out what to do while we were stranded at the closed zoo. Mike had his smart phone with him and found this Japanese garden within a mile of the zoo. Sure, why not. It was very picturesque.

 There were lots of koi fish and turtles.

 And a beautiful waterfall...

 We walked a couple more miles to a museum. Apparently, I only took a few pictures while there, but they had a dinosaur exhibit and a mummy exhibit.

It was a nice get away for us. It's always good to get away and spend time together as a couple.

Buckhorn Saloon

 The day we visited the Alamo, we also went to the Buckhorn Saloon. It's a very popular tourist attraction. It has hundreds of mounted animals and a lot of them were "freaks" of nature.

They have a 78 point buck. I didn't even know that could exist. The original owner of the saloon paid $100 for this buck back in the 1800's.

 They also had a Texas Ranger museum in the Buckhorn Saloon. The kids were pretty concerned when they saw me in jail. :)

 This River Raptor was shown in circuses and people actually believed it was real. It was a monkey body and someone added a tail.

 The Figi Mermaid was also a made-up creature.

 I thought these were kind of neat but kind of disturbing at the same time. These are real shrunken heads. They had an exhibit on how the tribesmen shrunk the heads.

Poor cow. Its horns were growing into its eyes.

 This deer had a bunch of barbed wire stuck in its horns.

 This deer had a huge growth on the side of its antler.

 This is a barnacle buck. Its horns were very strange.

 Poor dear. He just looks goofy.

 Of course, they had to have some two-headed calves.

It was an entertaining museum and well worth the money. You could bring beer with you as you toured it so it was a good time!

San Antonio Trip

 Mike had a work conference at the end of May in San Antonio. I always accompany him to these conferences and I vacation while he works. Sounds good for me, right? We were there five days, which is the perfect amount of time. Not too long but not too short. The kids had a couple of days of school left, so Grandpa and Grandma Schmidt came and watched them at our house for a few days and then they went to Chamberlain for a few days.

 Our hotel was right on the Riverwalk, right across the street from a mall, and it had a Starbucks in the lobby. Perfect! The day I decide to take pictures, it was pouring. I didn't plan that very well.

They had 13 inches of rain in one day. Two people actually died in the floods. There was water blocking roadways. Needless to say, the rain hampered our vacation a little. We wanted to go to Sea World but all of the rental cars were booked, it would have taken us 2 hours to get there by city bus, and a taxi ride would have been $50-$60 each way. Instead, we decided to go to the San Antonio Zoo. We paid $25 for a taxi ride there. He dropped us off and we walked up to the gate (of course, the taxi driver took off right away.) The zoo was closed because of the flooding.

Instead of the zoo, we walked a couple of miles to a museum and visited a Japanese garden along the way. The museum had a dinosaur exhibit and a mummy exhibit which was neat but I was still bummed about not getting to go to Sea World.

 Our hotel was not far from the Alamo, so we were able to walk there. It was neat seeing it again. My parents took us when we were younger, so I remembered a lot of it.

 This tree is 400 years old. It's absolutely massive. I couldn't even get it in one picture.

 I have quite a few pictures, so I'm going to break the posts up so it doesn't get too long.

More Ellen

 Here's some more from Ellen. These crack me up!

Got to Love Ellen

I'm Ellen Degeneres' friend on facebook. She posted some pictures of cakes that were mistakes. I thought it was too funny not to share. I'm not quite sure what I'd do if I received one of these cakes!