Before I tell you about our trip, a big announcement:
Aspen officially has her driver's permit! Oi! She is now legal to drive around town with us, and can begin her 7 hours of driving with the instructor and 7 hours of observation while another student drives with the instructor. She won't be 16 until next July, so we still have a bit of time...she was very excited though! She did very well on her test, and started to cry when she found out that she passed! :) Typical Aspen...
Now...onto Family Vacay 2011!
We decided to go to San Marcos, TX...there are two huge outlet malls there, along with a few other things we wanted to do. We left town Thursday after work, and stopped in Fredericksburg for dinner at the Brewery on the way. That was yum! We were pretty excited to be in our favorite town two weekends in a row. Then we carried onto San Marcos. It was about a 4 hour drive altogether.
Friday, after breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the outlet malls...started at 11:00 and stopped at 9:00. A super long day, but we found some great deals!! Tax-free weekend was in full force, but as we would see, Saturday would be much, much worse. So we were sooooo glad that we chose to do this on Friday. Aspen did her school shopping and did very good staying within her budget. Chris found some great deals on clothes for work and a few other things, and I got some goodies too! I will add them into the "cool purchases" post I do this week. :) After leaving the mall, we had a yummy dinner at Texas Roadhouse, and then crashed at the hotel.
Saturday, we had a few tourist things we wanted to do. We started off at the Aquarena! We got our tickets for the 11:30 glass bottom boat ride, and then had a little time to kill. So we went on the wetland walkway and into the aquarium house.
The Wetland Walkway was pretty cool...we saw some neat sights:
The walkway itself...it was so hot we were like roasting ducks out there!
Pretty lily pads with purple flowers...
Weird seaweed plantlife directly under the surface...
Toward the end of the walkway, we saw an otter swim by and then disappear under the lily pads. We were pretty excited about that! He moved so effortlessly, it was like he was greased!
Me and m'honey on the Wetland Walkway...
Aspen and I...
Then we moved onto the aquarium and saw the animals that we would see once we got in the boats. This turtle was pretty cute, and we loved the frog!
At 11:30, we boarded our little boat and took a half hour ride around the water. Our college student guide was very informative and pretty funny too. We enjoyed ourselves, and saw some neat things through the glass floor.
From there, we had a yummy lunch at Chimy's mexican restaurant, and then went to float the San Marcos river!! We rented tubes, applied our sunscreen, and got into the chilly water. It was so refreshing!!! The float took us about an hour, and was a good time! I haven't floated the river since I was a kid going to Black River Lodge with my McCarthy grandparents. The river was a little different from Missouri rivers, but I'm so glad we did it! It will be a fun memory.
We exited the river at the appropriate place and hopped on the shuttle that took us back to our car (a yellow school bus). After a quick change in the restroom, we headed back to the outlet mall! Aspen bought one more pair of jeans, and then we were done!!
We stopped at Fredericksburg on our way home too and had dinner at Auslanders. Chris tried an authentic german dish that consisted of roast beef rolled around a pickle and bacon, that was smothered in gravy. He liked it pretty well!
It was a great few days for us to bond as a family, and I think we all enjoyed the time together. Summer is now over and school begins!!
1 comment:
Sounds lovely & fun!
Way to go Aspen - you can't drive outside of Texas - right!?!
PTS
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