San Antonio, TX

 March 30th, Nick was scheduled to preach in Austin, Tx.  So we decided to make the most of the trip and head to San Antonio on Friday and stay along the riverwalk.  Rent a car to travel to Austin on Sunday for church, then head home.  We left Friday morning and went to chicago for the majority of the day.  Did some shopping at the mall, ate at Cheesecake Factory, and went to IKEA.  Flew out of Chicago around 5pm.  I have never been to San Antonio so I was really looking forward to this trip.  Nick had been there but back when he was in High School.  We stayed at the Indigo Hotel(priceline deal:)) which was along the riverwalk a bit up the river(but walking distance to the main part and away from the loud night life).  The weather was absolutely beautiful.  Sunny and 89 degrees!!  Saturday we probably walked(and ran~ a morning run) well over 10 miles.  It was one of our top little WEEKEND getaways.  (San Francisco is our top runner so far:))

 Along the riverwalk.  So pretty.  There are several bridges that cross the river so that you can enjoy both sides of the river and all the little restaurants and shops.

 We decided the riverwalk boat tour looked so fun, so we decided to splurge and take it.  It was the best 8$(a piece) we spent that weekend.  Our tour guide of course made it well worth it.  He was the slowest driver which gave us a 45 minute tour.  He kept letting other boats pass by.  He was extremely funny and he pointed out many great details of the river and the history behind it.  Of course if you were in a hurry and wanted to quick take a tour, then you might not have enjoyed it nearly as much.

 Have you ever seen posters or pictures of San Antonio Riverwalk??  Well, if you have then these umbrella's probably look familiar.  Supposedly these are the famous umbrellas that make it into most of the pictures when showing off San Antonio Riverwalk.  We were going to eat lunch here, but they didn't have any outside seating and it was just way to nice out to NOT eat outdoors.

 Here is our hotel.  It was a pretty nice hotel and we got a great deal on it:).

 Throughout the weekend we didn't really eat a lot of food.  The first night we ate at a mexican restaurant.  I was not feeling very good, but I am a huge addict to chips and salsa and so this place had the best chips and salsa we ate all weekend.  Nick had a small plate of food, but we basically at chips and salsa.....like 3 baskets of chips!!!  (yikes!!)  Then Saturday we just had coffee for breakfast and then "tried" to eat at this other mexican restaurant.  Sadly it was poor service like Ive never seen before.  They brought us chips and salsa and water right away.  Salsa was served hot and it was gross so that was disappointing.  Then they FINALLY came to take our order.  We sat, and sat and sat.  People around us were served, our waters were gone, and we never saw our waiter again!!  We finally decided to stick some money on the table for our chips and salsa and walk away.  We were going to tell our waiter we were leaving but we have no idea when he would ever return.  Since we had chips and salsa we weren't to hungry so we went and just sat in the sun and people watched for 2 hours and ate a blizzard:).  Talk about relaxing and so enjoyable!!!  We decided while sitting there to eat at a nice restaurant that night.  So we went for Texas de Brazil.  This is a Brazilian Steakhouse.  Ever eaten at one??  If not, I recommend it just for the amazing salad bar:).  Ok, if you are a huge meat eater then this is the place to go too!!

We also toured the Alamo of course.  Can't leave that out.  I was not feeling very good so I pretty much sat inside the courtyard while nick walked around and toured it.  It was about two hours later I finally started to feel better so was able to enjoy the remainder of the day.

A pretty neat place to go if you never have been there.  I couldn't make a week long vacation out of it for sure, but a weekend getaway was just perfect.  Thanks to my Dad and Mom for keeping our four little kiddos.  Much....much appreciated!!!