Can I just start by saying how proud I am that I have kept up blogging once a week for 3 weeks! That is a record for me (shoot even two weeks would be a record!) so I'm feeling pretty good right now! :D haha Anyway, to get on with this weeks blog... we went to San Antonio! It is only about an hour to an hour and a half away, and since our ward was going to the temple there this weekend (we don't have one in Austin) Jeff, James, Monica and I decided to make a whole day out of it! We started the day by going to the 9:30 session at the temple (I am still kicking myself for forgetting to take a picture of it, but we were running late) and then went and watched some of the kids in our ward at a local Stake Center so that their parents could go to the 12:30 session. Jeff and I are nursery leaders in our ward and I think it helped some of the younger kids to have some familiar faces there.
The rest of the days adventures are shown below...
We went to The Alamo! It was such a neat experience to go and see this historical place.
Our friends Monica and James at The Alamo.
Yes all this greenery was not there at the time of the epic battle, but it sure enhances the beauty and sacredness of the place.
Giant Japanese fish in a stream going through The Alamo fort. They looked like abnormally large goldfish/carp, but a little too much like the giant carp at Lake Powell for my taste.
Another part of the fort.
We also went to the River Walk! Another very neat place! There were so many shops, restaurants and HUGE trees surrounding this run river running through San Antonio downtown. It reminded all of us a little of Disneyland. :)
There was also a lot of cute ducks and not so cute carp to feed in the river. :)
We then wandered around town for a while, (San Antonio is a very tourist friendly city) saw some neat attractions like "Ripley's Believe it or Not" store, a wax museum, people painting different sites and much more. After this we got lunch at the Lonestar steakhouse (with a name like that none of us dared get anything other than Texas burgers and/or steak!) and then headed home. It was such a fun day and I can't wait to go back next month! :)
I don't know how Jeff saw this little guy among the rocks, but he did and caught it. In his hand is the tinniest lizard I have ever seen! Jeff just has an eye for seeing and catching anything that crawls, jumps, slithers, swims, etc.
He was so TINY!
But not as tiny as this little frog Jeff found soon after! Again I have never seen a frog this small and don't know how Jeff spots these little guys!
Bull Creek.
Jeff exploring Bull Creek.
These next two photos are just to show how beautiful it is here in Austin Texas. It is SO much greener and has so many more parks, rivers and lakes than I had expected!
Beautiful green hills.
In other news, WE HAVE RACCOONS! Now unlike some people, we don't think having raccoons outside our window a bad thing. Probably because we both find them so cute (Jeff was really thrilled when he first saw them as he had never seen a live raccoon before) and we are on the second floor of our complex, so they don't bother us. There is a mommy, a daddy and three babies. They climb around the trees outside our balcony and eat the food on the ground that our next door neighbor throws to them. (We also throw them a few munchies every now and again.) They are plenty plump and I'm sure do not need any extra food from us, but since we can't have a cat or dog, at least we get raccoons. ;) haha
Living in Texas in turning out to be quite the adventure and we are really enjoying our time here! Our ward is so friendly, we are making fast friends and the local people are so nice! Even the traffic is so much better than the current Utah County construction chaos we left. However, we do miss our family and friends a great deal and hope you all are happy and that we continue to stay in contact! We have a Skype and Google Chat account, so if any of you want to video chat sometime, let me know! :)
Love the post :) BTW, in that pic of you and Jeff outside the Alamo, you look like you have a prego belly. Just thought that'd make you happy :)
ReplyDeleteLove ya sis!
Wow, there really are some nice places in Texas, and you seem to have landed right in the middle of them. Is Bull creek in Austin? I'm glad Jeff has some fun places to catch creatures, and I'm glad it sounds like you're enjoying it there too, Jane. That's a great picture of the raccoon! Can you get one of the babies? That might be a challenge.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Annette
Thanks Abbie! You're right, that does make me very happy! It's so fun to finally be looking pregnant! :)
ReplyDeleteAnnette I will try and take a picture of one of the baby racoons for you. They aren't too tiny though, about the size of a chiuahua. There really are a lot of fun places here and I can't wait to show them to all of you!