Spring Break Road Trip

Last week was our spring break. It was nice to have Mike at home every evening instead of off at Texas State participating in higher learning. It was also nice to have a break from Mother's Day Out and hang out at home a little more.

However, Friday rolled around and this was our first full day and evening together as a family since Mike started school in January. So, I had a brilliant idea. I decided that we would load the kids up in the Jeep and cruise on over to San Antonio for a trip to the zoo. I hadn't been to this zoo in at least twenty years and I had heard nothing but great things about it.

The problem was that when we showed up we were greeted by about 18,000 of our closest friends. Never, I repeat, never go to the zoo during spring break. It was a complete zoo in there.

We arrived around 10:30 and saw our first animal at about noon. First, we went into this education center that had some games set out for kids. Jake and Emma loved it. I think it was their favorite part of the trip.



Then we decided to join the other millions of people there in looking at some animals. We took in our little umbrella stroller to push Emma around. She had other ideas. She did not want to ride in it. In fact, she wanted to push it. So we let her until she started running into people left and right. We tried to help her steer but she wasn't having it. Finally, we had to tell her to just step away from the stroller. This caused a raging fit from little bit. She cried and cried and then she screamed and flailed her little body around right there in the middle of all of those people. For about twenty minutes. That was how long it took us to realize that the kids were probably hungry and then stand in line to buy hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, popcorn, ice cream, and Popsicles for them. We left no stone unturned in the junk food that was available to us.

We resumed our animal watching as soon as we had two happy kids again. The problem with the animals was that they were over it. A week of having thousands of loud, smelly humans around was more than they could take. I mean we saw the animals, but the animals were all playing dead. And really that is exactly what I felt like doing.

We ended our adventure with a train ride around the zoo, a two hour trip home in some really bad traffic and a promise from me to never ever ever have another bright idea again.