Day Trip to Natural Bridge Caverns + Wildlife Safari Park

Somewhere 30 minutes outside of San Antonio, adventures awaited us at an underground cavern and, of all things, an African Safari. We hit the road early and first caught a 70 minute, 3/4 mile tour of the Natural Bridge Caverns that took us 18 stories underground. It is estimated to be 20 million years old, but was only discovered in the 1960's. Stalagmites and stalactites galore, the boys enjoyed the views and the "underground hike."

Conveniently located next door was an African Safari Park where we saw giraffes, rhinos, zebras, ostriches, antelope and buffalo all from the comfort of our own car. We were able to feed some of the animals who came right up to the car (see Ostrich feeding video below -- I've been bitten by an Ostrich before so I wasn't messing around with this one!) as well as field some questions about llama mating:

Morgan noticing Llama mating

Julie feeds ostrich

 

Morgan checking out ostrich

Llamas "cuddling"

Christmas 2012

Santa was thankfully able to find us here in Austin this year. He enjoyed the peppermint brownie we left him and gave the boys lots and lots of gifts so I guess that means they were good this year. They also got lots of gifts from family and friends (thank you!) Morgan was the first to get up at 7:15 (early for him) and woke us up as instructed before opening any gifts. Then we had to get Dean up who remained pretty groggy until about 3 presents in when he caught on that there were toys for him under all that colorful paper : ) The present opening went by pretty fast and we spent the rest of the day inside, playing with all the new toys which were big hits. The next day, Morgan asked me how many more days it was until Christmas again. He's not a particularly excitable kid, but Christmas sure brought lots of smiles. It was nice to see things through their eyes.

Dean with Pete the Cat & new PJs

M playing with battery-powered car on track

reading the new Pete the Cat book with daddy

D trying out the Spooner board

M on the Spooner balance board

Christmas Countown

Now that everyone is feeling better, it was back to holiday-related activities. First was"Hot Rod Santa" at Amy's Ice Cream down the street. Since Dean was still recovering, he stayed back with Ed while I took Morgan. He seemed excited about seeing Santa (or maybe just his hot rod) but once we got there, he was all shy and didn't want to sit with Santa. So we checked out his cool ride and got ice cream instead. While eating ice cream, I asked Morgan if he was more excited about seeing Santa or eating ice cream and he responded with a mouthful, "ice cream." So there you go : )

Next was our first attempt at making a gingerbread house ever. Dean got one side of the house, marked with a "D", and Morgan got the other, marked with an "M". They were instructed to not eat the candy, which to my surprise, actually succeeded in deterring them. They liked decorating with all the different colors and were proud of their finished product:

Then, last night was the final night of "Trail of Lights" at Zilker Park. It's been a holiday tradition since the 60's but was absent the past two years due to lack of funding. We had heard a lot of hype about it as a spectacular light display that you can walk through, so we made the effort to stand in line for 1 hour before it opened. It was fun to see with the kids, but the crowds took away from the enjoyment somewhat, and to be honest, we thought the light display we saw last year at Wimberley was more original and charming. Nevertheless, at least we got to see what it was all about and the kids liked looking at all the themed displays.

Lastly, this morning we checked out the gingerbread house display at the Four Seasons downtown, comprised of landmarks of Austin.

Fredericksburg Christmas Parade

Went to the Lighted Christmas Parade in Fredericksburg (1.5 hours away) a couple weekends ago. We missed it last year due to rain, but had heard it was pretty cool so we wanted to check it out. We got there before dark and set up camp along the parade route where we ate pizza and popcorn. The boys had front row seats in their double stroller and thankfully the weather cooperated this time, barely chilly enough to wear a light coat. The boys were mesmerized with the laser light show, live music, TONS of vehicles and Dean even saw a double decker bus! There was no doubt that we were in Texas though, noted by the floats featuring tractors, longhorns, cowboys and the like. These Texans sure are proud of their heritage. After the hour long parade, it was 7:30, and we changed the boys into pjs in the back of the car before heading home. Both Morgan and Dean were asleep by the time we made it back to Austin.