Spring Camping

Spring has sprung, and we spent half of Liam's spring break camping with my parents in San Antonio.

We did the usual...bug catching, ball throwing, junk food eating, teeth pulling, etc.
Yes, we really did pull teeth. Jack's second loose tooth was holding on by a thread, but he refused to pull it. When Didi saw the permanent tooth already in behind it, she took matters into her own hands.
At 5 years and 2 months, a second lost tooth must be some kind of record.

All the while Didi's Dentistry was in session, Garrett had to take a break for losing his temper.
His face says it all. And that picture reminds me of this camping trip where he spent a good portion of the trip in timeout for screaming. Here he is 2 1/2 years ago:
Some things never change. Garrett still has a temper, but I can't say too much about that myself. Ahem.

Another thing that hasn't changed...Liam is still the Nut.
And he must always. be. moving. Jumping rope is a perfect activity for him.
He also told Big Daddy that he could out jump him, so the challenge was on. Look at Liam's face when my dad quickly won:
Never underestimate Big Daddy.

After Jackson's dental work, he moved onto ant beating.
I walked up behind him to find him literally beating the ants as they crawled up the tree. Unfortunately, I didn't get there in time to save the ants or the net. They were all pretty beaten up.

Meanwhile, Garrett came out of timeout and wanted to play catch with Daddy.
My little leftie...
is so proud of the fact that he can now catch pop flies.
We decided to head to downtown San Antonio the next day. Do you know how many helpers Big Daddy needed to pay the parking meter?
Yep, three.

The Alamo was our first stop.
And the birds of the Alamo left a fun souvenir on Didi's shirt.
My boys wanted pretty much nothing to do with her thereafter. Poor Didi.

We did see the Alamo, along with 14,000 other tourists. Garrett's temper didn't flare in the line.
Nope, he and Liam were cool with hangin' out in the line.
Jack, however, was none too excited about the wait. He complained for the first ten minutes, but he stopped once he figured out we were in a great place for his favorite activity...people watching.
Liam studied the Alamo in school this year. As we walked through the mission, we quizzed him and were pleased with what he understood. Our property tax dollars are indeed at work.

After all that walking and quizzing, we were starved and found ourselves on the Riverwalk. I am ashamed to admit that we went to the Riverwalk and did not eat Mexican food. It's terribly embarrassing, but an Irish pub smelled really good at the time, and we did have Mexican the night before.

The boys were thrilled to sit at their own pub table.
How long do you think it was before Jack fell off of his stool? 2 minutes. That's our Jack!

After lunch, we had hoped to ride one of the Riverwalk boats, but the line to buy tickets was 16,427 people long or something ridiculous like that. So we just walked and took more pictures.

My two eldest, Liam and Jack.
They're usually at each other's throats, so when we catch them in a loving pose, we take advantage!

Along our walk, we saw this mama duck with her six ducklings.
That poor mama has two stragglers. I pity her.

We walked and walked and walked and must have become delirious, because trying on hats became great entertainment.
Why not?
Who wouldn't?
We're a hat-wearin' family.
This next photo is funny only if you know that we have called Liam "Peanut" since the day he was born, five days before we even saw him.
Incidentally, I asked him a few days ago if he thought he would ever outgrow that nickname. He said, "NO! I'm always gonna be Peanut." I'm good with that, Nutty.

We walked and walked and walked some more with the promise that we would ride the bus back to our car. When the time finally came to wait for a bus, we plopped down and heaved a huge sigh of relief. This winter has kept us cooped up too much, and we're not used to all this activity.
Unfortunately, every bus that passed was PACKED, and we had to walk it back.

Rick had to fly home for work that evening, but the boys and I stayed for a few more days.
The boys were thrilled.
There was a playground.
And they played hard. And crashed hard at night.

Our last day was full of rain, which left us in the camper. We played restaurant and
hangman
and watched movies.

I can't figure out a clever way to end this post, and that is why this lukewarm, half-written post has been sitting around the editing floor of my blog. But who am I kidding? A clever ending? They are rare around here.