March Madness

March Madness is in full swing and the little guys love being a part of it just as much as the big guys.







Carter’s team had the opportunity to play in the Pacesetter State Tournament at UNI Saturday and had a very successful day.  After earning the #1 seed after morning pool play, they ended up winning the 5th grade boys championship.  

This win earns them the opportunity to play in the Target Center in Minneapolis later on this year against the top teams from three other states. Needless to say, the team is beyond excited!  

Who knows...maybe a signature or two on this ball will be worth something some day!

Our last day

Since I was already in the running for mother of the year with taking the boys to Hooters, I figured I might as well seal up the award by capping off our time with one more visit to the Riverwalk to eat and hang out at Dick's Last Resort.  How to describe Dick's? Everything is pretty rude and crude ~ and right up Ace's alley!  

Ace ordered a beer.  Somehow our waitress convinced him that he needed a tower beer.  Never one to turn something fun sounding down, he agreed and ended up being the center of attention with the contraption that was delivered to the table.  You know he L.O.V.E.D. every moment of people talking and taking pictures of him and his tower beer!  

He was even so kind and entertaining as to finish it off in style! (I'm sure you are all surprised by this.)

The boys really wanted to experience the 4D House of Mirrors before we left, so that was our last stop at the Riverwalk before heading to the AT&T Center to watch our hometown Harrison Barnes and the Golden State Warriors take on the San Antonio Spurs.  

Carter was pretty excited to be sporting a friend's Barnes' jersey to the game and didn't even mind all the heckling he received. The heckling really wasn't too bad until he lost a tooth chomping on some popcorn during the second half of the game.  

As he was taking care of rinsing his mouth out in the restroom (with help from Austin of course!) a Spurs fan came up to him and said, "Somebody punch you in da mouth for wearing dat jersey?"  Carter said no, but apparently had spit a wad of popcorn out in the sink and the man peered at it and asked him, "Is dat yo teeth?" over and over again sure that someone had punched him for wearing a Warriors jersey.  I'm pretty sure after the 4th time he asked, "Is dat yo teeth?" the boys just hightailed it back to our seats as Carter came with a handful of paper towels and blood still spurting! In true mother of the year fashion, I couldn't stop laughing when they told us the story!  Maybe next time I should make sure Ace goes along to protect my little flock...

What an ending to our 2400 mile spring break trek!  We had a wonderful time and created a bunch of fun family memories together.

Sea World

Sea World was our most recent adventure here in San Antonio.  Ironically enough, as we were heading to see Shamu perform, we ran into our friends from Ames and took in the show with them!  I think the kids thought it was pretty cool to get to experience that with some friends.  

After watching Shamu, the kids made a beeline for the Search for Atlantis  ride.  As you can see from the picture, Ace and the boys were in the front row and enjoyed every single minute of it!  I was giving Carter a hard time for not having his hands in the air like Ace and Austin and he promptly stared me down and said, "I notice you aren't even on the ride!"  Touche child!  I'm a ride weenie ~ even though I might have been able to have handled this one.  

We continued our way around the park and were thankful that spring break for San Antonio was last week (even though it meant the water park area of Sea World was closed).  We gazed at the alligators, turtles and my favorite animal of all time ~ the penguins! 

I really wanted to bring a penguin home, but Ace told me they frowned upon those things.  We had a cooler in the van and the temps back home seem to be just perfect for those adorable little penguins, but alas, it was not to be.  I guess I'll have to settle for the memories instead. 

Aaron and the boys took in a few more rides during our time there.  Ace even convinced Austin to go on the upside down twisty turny hangy upside downy roller coaster!  (or maybe it was the bribe that convinced him!) Nonetheless, he was brave while Carter and I wisely stayed behind and prayed! 

It was a great day and we have one more to go.  It's the Riverwalk again and we'll end with watching our hometown Harrison Barnes and his Golden State Warriors take on the San Antonio Spurs.

Zip lines, Spelunking and Rudy's BBQ

After a pretty lazy morning, we headed out for a full afternoon at Natural Bridge Caverns in which we promptly ran into another family from Ames.  What a small world!  We actually knew they were going to be in San Antonio as one of the kids is Austin's age and they had talked about it at school, but truly in a city this size, we never imagined our paths would cross.  Needless to say we chatted for awhile and ironically our plans for the entire time we are here are I.D.E.N.T.I.C.A.L., right down to places to eat. We were quite surprised that we didn't actually run into each other yesterday since we did the same things.  

Since we had a bit of time before our scheduled tour of the caverns, the boys wanted to zip line and spend some time on the canopy ropes course. 

They had a hey day on the zip lines and the ropes course, and then we headed underground for our very own spelunking expedition.  Since it was 93 degrees here today, we thought the 70 degree temperature inside the caves (minus the 99% humidity) was a pretty decent option for us.  

We walked down 211 feet below the surface and took in some pretty amazing sites of stalactites and stalagmites.  By the end of our regular tour, I was beginning to feel as though the walls were caving in on me (yes, you can laugh and appreciate the pun all at the same time). 

The guys however decided to take one more tour of some hidden passages that have only been located in the last 5 years. 

On the docket for dinner was Rudy's, my absolute favorite place for BBQ. They smoke the meats right there in front of you and slice your portion while you wait ~ hmmm...hmmm good! 

Ace was even sweet enough to take me back to the original one, which was the only one around when I used to live here.  We dined on a variety of BBQ turkey, brisket and ribs, and I soaked up the memories!  

Kiss us...we're Iowish

Happy St. Patty's Day and 15,000 days of life for Ace!  (Don't ask...only Ace would be able to figure out how many actual days he's been alive and find it necessary to celebrate.)  What better way to celebrate than on the Riverwalk in San Antonio.  

Oh the wonderful memories that came flooding back from my 2 1/2 years spent living here!  A few things have changed in and around the area, but the places I hung out at were all still here. The biggest difference for me was the hubby and two kids that I was toting around with me! 

 We started our morning with a  riverboat tour. I think Ace was the only attentive one listening to the history lessons being provided.  I was taking a stroll down memory lane, and the boys were simply mesmerized by everything they were seeing.  

We then headed for a look at the Alamo, but the line to go through was a sure sign that seeing it from the outside would be just fine. Instead, we found ourselves taking in Ripley's Believe it or Not and Louis Tussaud's Wax Museum, which I'm pretty sure was much more up the boys' alleys.   

 Carter found himself sitting down for a chat with Oprah.

 Austin had a nice litle conversation with Dr. Phil.  

We ended our time at the two museums with a 4D experience that left me screaming like the wimpy little girl that I am, especially when it "snowed" on me!  

We headed back down to the Riverwalk for the St. Patty's parade and to get a bite to eat.  Before we knew it, the day was nearing it's end and we still wanted to take in the sites of San Antonio from the Tower of America. 

After our time there and the 90 degree temps from the day, we were all ready to head back to the hotel for some relaxation before heading out again tomorrow.

Our adventure continues

All of our family bonding time on our road trip is providing quite a bit of entertainment with the things falling out of people’s mouths!  After a good night’s snooze in Dallas, I was giving one of the boys a hard time about talking in his sleep.  He simply looked at me and said, “I’m learning alien through Rosetta Stone while I sleep!”  Hmmm…I’m pretty sure he’s his father’s child!

Our original plan was to visit downtown Dallas and check out the grassy knoll and the Book Depository.  However, in watching the news, there was a St. Patty’s race and parade happening in that area and we decided not to fight those crowds and simply do a quite drive by of Cowboy Stadium.  Leave it to Ace to follow the gps to the site of the old stadium in which there was N.O.T.H.I.N.G. but rubble.  Never one to be deterred, he promptly headed us in the right direction towards the new stadium.  As we were driving by, there seemed to be a group of people making their way into the stadium.  Of course Ace insisted we check out what they were doing, and we ended up taking a two hour tour of Cowboy Stadium.

While we were there, they were converting the field into a basketball court in preparation for March Madness next week.  It’s quite an impressive place (everything truly is bigger in Texas as the Statue of Liberty could fit inside standing on her base and still not touch the ceiling!) in which we got to hang out in Jerry Jones’ suite (where Ace and I are above) as well as the cheerleaders' and players' locker rooms.  

It's hard to say which was more exciting to my guys, but my guess is the cheerleaders locker room!

 Luckily enough, the Cowboys have players with the last names of Austin and Carter so photo ops were in full swing.  However, we were instructed NOT to touch the wooden lockers as each one was close to $10,000.  Holy Moses!  Who needs that?!?  Definitely not teachers or kids at school...I'll leave it at that and get off my soapbox for now!  

Aaron seemed to think it was an okay thing for the boys to have their first experience at Hooters since they had just hung out in the Dallas Cowboys' Cheerleading locker room.  You can be rest assured as the only female in the group, I was not winning this one (mother of the year maybe for allowing it maybe!).  

 After that we made the rest of our trek to San Antonio and enjoyed swimming in an outdoor pool at 8 pm at night!  You sure can't do that in Iowa right now.  Tomorrow...St. Patty's Day on the Riverwalk!

Road Trip

Not ones to sit home, we figured a little road trip to San Antonio was in order during Spring Break.  We headed out early Thursday afternoon and made a quick pit stop at my college roomie's for the night.  It sure was nice to see Dawn and family for a quick bit and we greatly appreciate their hospitality.

We headed out Friday morning with Dallas as our destination.  We made a stop in Oklahoma City to visit the Memorial for those involved in the Oklahoma City Bombing at the Murrah Federal Building.  I can still vividly remember coming home from student teaching in San Antonio that day (April 19, 1995) and seeing this news plastered across the television.

This was an event that the boys were unfamiliar with as they weren't even born yet, (shoot, I wasn't even dating Aaron at this time!) but they were surely affected by what we saw and heard during our experience during the museum tour.  There's something about being able to experience part of our country's history through audio, video, and seeing the actual rubble and artifacts from the bombing.  There were so many aspects of this experience that made the tears flow, but seeing the watches of victims stopped at 9:02, the tiny shoes of some of the children killed, and pictures of each of the victims were simply too much at times.

After our stop in OKC, we forged on towards Dallas.  Amazingly, we all did pretty well for almost 9 hours in the car in one day.  Only a short little jaunt (5 hours) and we'll be in San Antonio tomorrow.  

Acts of kindness v.7

 Acts of kindness 20 - 25

These acts of kindness were all spread somewhere during my girl's trip to Cancun.  I tied some ribbon and a happy little note on packs of gum to leave in places at the airports and the resort where I was staying.  I also left one fun box of chocolates in the statue right outside our room for someone to enjoy.  The housekeeper also got her own little goodies on our final day there.

Act of kindness 26
I happened to be downtown one weekday during the lunch hour due to an inservice and dug through all of the change in my van and purse to feed as many meters as I could.  It's a little embarrassing that I was able to feed 2 city blocks of meters with the change I found!  Hopefully it was a nice treat for people to pull in to a parking spot and not need to dig up their own change.

Act of kindness 27
My sweet friend Heidi offered up a double dog dare of acts of kindness in honor of her upcoming birthday that I simply couldn't resist.  You can read about it and her youthfulness here.  Someday she too will reach "maturity" like me!  I'm a bit behind in keeping up with her, but due to my "mature" age I'm sure it's okay.  However, I'm pleased to say I've completed her most recent idea - even before she put it out there!  Great minds must think alike!  I dropped a card in the mail to a friend who needed some encouragement as she is going through some rough patches in her grief cycle after losing her mom unexpectedly this past summer.  I knew she needed a reminder that myself, as well as many others, were still thinking of her and praying for her and her entire family.

My sweet Carter also did his own act of kindness that simply blew me away!  On one of our early outs recently, in which we ended up with almost 8 inches of snow, he got home from school before Austin and I and had scooped the entire driveway clean.  What an awesome kid ~ He must take after his mama!

Our Champ!

Congratulations to Carter and his team for winning their division this weekend at the Tournament of Champions in Des Moines!  

He has a pretty scrappy team that has been able to pull off some clutch wins right at the buzzer. They nearly give me a heart attack most games I tell you. Our semi final match up against the Waukee Rage was one of those games in which we (yes, we - my heart feels like I'm out there with them!) made a three pointer with 3 seconds left in the game to capture the win, putting us in the championship game.  

Needless to say, the adrenaline coursing through the boys definitely helped them get out to a quick and determined start in the final game.  The boys were able to keep a pretty consistent lead throughout the entire game and came home with the hardware!