Bandera, Texas- Part 1

From New Braunfels, we headed down to Bandera for a week long stay at my parent's timeshare. We decided to take a year off from Disney because I simply could not plan one more thing this summer, so I asked Riley if he would be ok with a week in San Antonio in its place.  He not only agreed, but was quite excited about the whole thing.  I do love the beautiful nights and all the nature we see while there. 

Our first day there we hit the waterpark attached to the grounds, had dairy queen for dinner, took the trailer ride, and capped off our evening with smores. YUM!  Who doesn't love smores?

On Monday we drove into San Antonio and visited Sea World.  Since we have been several times, we chose to not bring the camera because while I love watching the Shamu show over and over again, I really don't need 200 pictures of Shamu. One big moment of the day was that Alex walked the entire time without being carried!  This is a major feat for us.  She started the morning complaining that her leg was hurting and she needed to be carried.  My mom told her if she would just walk all the way to Shamu, then she would buy her some popcorn.  She did it without a complaint and then walked the rest of the day. 

On Tuesday, we went horseback riding!  Riley was finally old enough to ride, so I signed him and me up to take the hour long trail ride.

Here is Riley with his horse, Tremer.  He did so well.  He was timid at first, but by the end he kept telling me what to do.  Flying L Ranch offered something just a little extra that I had to leap at.  For $5 you could purchase a horse shoe with your name & the horse's name on it.  I thought this way a great way to commerate his first real horse ride.

After we got Riley all loaded up, I got on my horse.  Alex didn't actually get to ride with me, but they let us put her up there to pose for a picture. 

Then we headed off for our hour long trail ride.  I got the difficult horse that doesn't listen.  I swear I have, "I'm a teacher" written on me and they decided I could handle it.  My horse wanted to stop and eat every chance he could get.  If he wasn't eating, then he would have to stop to poop.  What horse stops to poop?  Don't they usually just keep going?  Not mine!

Right after our ride, we took Alex over to ride the pony.  Her pony's name was Brownie.  I also ordered her a horse shoe since this was her first pony ride.  She only got to ride for about 10 minutes, but she thought it was really cool!

After all the horse riding, we continued with the theme and went to throw horseshoes.  Riley & Gampa were doing pretty good and really getting the hang of it.  Alex, on the other hand, didn't see the point of throwing it.  She prefered to just walk up and drop it around the pin, silly girl!

Then we headed over for a little putting practice.  My dad already had plans to take Riley golfing with him one morning and wanted to at least show him how to putt on the real course.

After all that hot stuff, we decided it was time for more pool action.  We loved their small waterpark.  It had just enough slides and just a big enough wave pool to keep us all occupied  Plus you could walk to it from our room and was included in the cost of the rooms for the week.  Tuesday night we had barbeque dinner outside on the picnic tables, followed by SMORES, of course.

Wednesday we travleled back into San Antonio for a day at Fiesta Texas.  Our first stop was to head to the Scooby Doo ride that Riley chickened out on last time, but was determined to gain redemption on this trip.  Along the way we found a ride that was like the swings ride at Six Flags, but on a slightly smaller scale.  Alex actually decided she wanted to ride it, and LOVED it!  So they rode it twice and then we raced over to Scooby Doo.  We didn't really know what it was, all we knew was it was indoors and had a really long line last time. Turns out it was a laser game where you ride around and shoot at things trying to get the highest score.  Another huge hit with Alex. Since it was early morning and hardly any one was in line, we rode it like 3 times in a row.  We finally decided to check out other rides, but then HAD to ride the swings again.  Whatever it took because suddenly Alex had learned that rides aren't scary.  She had the best time that day and became adventurous.  After the heat reached its peak, and we all were reaching our low, we headed over to Fiesta Texas' water park.  Talk about fun!  The kids had a blast in the kids' area.  I just wish that Riley and I had left to ride the big slides sooner.  Having no idea what time it was, I convinced Riley to ride the 4 person intertube, but didn't make it to the slides he wanted to ride before the park closed.  I felt kind of bad, but he did really enjoy the big intertube.  After the water park closed, we decided it was time for us to drive the 45 minutes back to Bandera after grabbing dinner. Another fun filled and exhausted day.