Memorial Day weekend

For Memorial Day weekend, my parents were able to visit us again.  Since we'd pretty much seen all that San Marcos has to offer, we spent a day in San Antonio (about 45 min. south of us).  We walked along the river, eat out at Chili's (above), looked at a bunch of different arts and crafts shops and stalls, and ended the day visiting the Witte Museum of Natural History and Science.  It was a really nice weekend together and chance to get out of the house.

The Riverwalk in San Antonio

(Danny and I look like my mom's secret service escort, lol).

San Antonio has quite a number of beautiful architecture around the historic downtown.

(... pretty fountains, must take pictures, haha)

Some of the art we saw was definitely... unique, to say the least, like these metal yard art donkeys.

... or the brightly colored flying pigs.

Some of the paintings were really strange, but many of them were quite beautiful with some very stunning watercolor paintings.

This particular series of artwork was fun to look at.

... it was really hot that day though, and right about here, I was just so dehydrated and regretting not bringing any water, when right around the corner, some guys were giving away ice cold bottles of water to visitors. yay for little blessings!

... this reminded me of Italy, even though it's in spanish.

The Witte Museum

It wasn't very large of a museum but it had some really nice pieces, like this giant Triceratops skeleton.

This was one of the natural history exhibits.  When I first looked at it, I thought I saw maybe four or five animals, but then as they lit each animal one by one and told you a little about it, I realized there were over two dozen different animals in the small enclosure.  pretty cool, no?

They had this exhibit of trains of these huge ornate dresses, each representing something from the area from where the model came.  I can't imagine how long it took to make these gowns, or worse yet, how heavy they must be to wear with all the decorations on them.

... I really liked this one on the right, supposed to be representing stained glass windows of a cathedral.

We didn't get a lot of time in the science part of the museum (we got there pretty late), but what we did see was pretty fun and very interactive.  It would've been really good for kids.

... attempts at family pictures... we're not exactly the most photogenic though...

Thanks for visiting us! :)

Easter

(Eventually, I will get caught up and will actually post things when they happen, lol).

I got a new dress for Easter! :D  Aside from my wedding dress and ring dance dress, I haven't had an actual dress since I was fourteen.  They never seemed to fit right so I've always worn skirts and blouses.  So when I happened to see some really cute (and modest!) dresses at Dress Barn that actually fit me, I just had to get one.  It makes me feel so fancy and I love how it twirls.

... trying to initiate some Easter traditions in our new family... Danny was a bit skeptical of the level of fun in dyeing eggs as adults, but once I convinced him to join me (I attempted to color an egg in camo color and he just had to try and make his own camo colored egg too), he seemed to enjoy himself.

the results!  (we used a package of dyes from the store, but I didn't want to use all of the color tablet at once.  They weren't labeled so I tried to pick three that looked like primary colors and ended up getting a blue, fushia, and lime green... hence the odd colors.)

Daniel's creations (sorry the lighting is bad, the one on the left was a striped one, and the one on the right is his camo egg).

Easter Morning - I couldn't decide whether I'd rather do I big Easter brunch or a big Easter dinner, so I opted for both (note to self: *bad* idea... for only two people, this was waaaay too much food, time and effort... plus I got a bad flu later that week and didn't even get to enjoy any of the leftovers, but whatever, it's the effort that counts, right?)  We had fruit and deviled eggs and blueberry muffins and banana muffins. yay!

I also surprised Danny with homemade Easter baskets made from paper lunch sacks.  Can you tell which is which?  haha. I made mine a cute little white bunny but I figured Danny wouldn't really care for that, so I made his an Army Easter Bunny. (side note: yes, I know I colored him with jungle camo colors instead of digital desert camo colors, but ya know, digital camo is really hard to color. so there.  Danny, though he did mention the inaccuracy, loved it all the same.)

I even found some camo colored Easter eggs that came with little toy army men too. such a fun surprise!

... though I still liked mine.

Happy Easter!

Danny's 23rd Birthday

Danny's birthday this year fell in the middle of spring break.  While he got to have the day off from school, I still had to work all the week.  I was a little bummed at not being to spend time with him, but I had only been working a few weeks and couldn't really take it off.  Then, to my suprise, since we weren't as busy during the holiday week, my supervisor allowed each of us to take one day off.  I decided to suprise Danny with a homemade breakfast and the news that I got to stay home and spend it all with him for his birthday.  I had it all planned out.  I'd get up at the same time I normally did for work and just start making breakfast instead.  Danny is such a heavy sleeper, nothing wakes him up anyway, so I'd be okay there.  Once he woke up (around 9 am, since he got to sleep in during spring break), I could say "Surprise! Happy Birthday! I got the day off!" very cool, right?

... well, I didn't intend on one thing.  Everything was going great, the banana muffins were coming out of the oven, I was nearly done with the eggs and was in the middle of making a birthday banner, around 7:30, when Danny walks in, all bleary-eyed and says, "I smell banana bread! ... and aren't you supposed to be going to work?" ... *sigh* oh well, so much for my surprise.  I did make him go back to bed for half an hour until I finished though, haha, aren't I mean.  And yes, he was happy that I got to spend the day with him, and it was so much fun.  I hope he enjoyed it.

good morning sunshine! :)

"... there's food and presents. I'm happy."

(try to act surprised now, as though you didn't know what you were already getting since you picked it out...)

more Tom Clancy books, yay.

even our apartment complex wished him a happy birthday with balloons and cookies tied to our front door

per request, a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting! and of course twenty-three candles :)

make a wish!

... perhaps a bit too strong in blowing the candles out, lol?