Memory Monday ~ San Antonio

Today's Memory = our "Sister Trip" to San Antonio in late July 2008 ...smack dab in the middle of Hurricane Dolly!! lol

This pic = Rach and I trying on sunglasses while shopping at the Riverwalk Mall.  

That part of the trip was memorable mostly because I'd told Rach she probably shouldn't wear her fake-diamond ring on her left hand before we left our hotel room, but she assured me no one would notice or care.  Then whilst we were shopping, before we'd gotten very far, an annoyingly perky sales clerk freaked out when she saw Rach's big ring and asked whether she was engaged or married.  Rach tried to downplay and said, "Oh, just engaged" before having time to think it through (this was way before she'd even met Joshua).  And then she had to answer a myriad of questions about the colors, date, proposal, wedding spot, etc.  And I had to walk away because I was laughing too hard!  ...As soon as we left that store, she quietly switched the ring to her right hand and glared at me and said "Shut up!" lol

Oh, it's still kinda funny now!

This was actually before the sunglasses pic.  She was so excited to find Hannah Montana and the Jo Bros at the Disney Store, after we'd spent much of our road trip listening to Eminem and Lil Wayne, so that cracked me up!! =)

A ridiculously bright pic of us by the river.

Day 2 was Schlitterbahn Water Park!  ...Popular place!!  We waited in line for almost 2 hours for that massive slide.  (Fun, yes, but not really worth that wait.)  I remember having to ride a shuttle to get to the other half of the park.  It was all intense and huge, and we hadn't planned very well for it, so there was a good amount of wasted time and floating through the lazy river trying to find the best slides.  After a while, we both got worn out and decided to go back to the hotel to eat cookie cake and watch the My Boys marathon on TBS, a plan we were oddly excited about! lol  (It makes me think of that scene in Guilt Trip where they get bored and decide to leave the Grand Canyon after a couple minutes because no one will know anyway.  Family trips are nice that way - no pressure to see every possible thing or pretend you're having fun when you'd rather just be relaxing.)

Meanwhile, Hurricane Dolly was rolling in to help make our vacation more memorable.

 A couple sister pics after we got dressed up for dinner. :)  Not sure where we went, but I do remember running into Nate Renfro from CHA.

=)

Rach humoring me by taking the Riverwalk Boat Tour at night!  I always like those - she wasn't so excited about it. lol

The next day was SeaWorld - the part of the trip we'd been most excited for... we got there early, and as we sat in the car waiting for them to open, it started pouring rain!!  
Here's Rach looking super-pumped about that. lol

So we ran in and bought these awesome and crazy-stylish ponchos! lol  

First (and coolest) thing we did was pet and feed the dolphins!!  Dolphins are fantastic and adorable, and they always look so happy and full of life!

YAY!!

Then we watched a dolphin show, kinda hoping the rain would let up when we got out of there.

Umm, it didn't. lol  So after walking through the Penguin Habitat (for me - how precious are penguins!?) and Rach riding the rollercoaster a few times (which seemed especially crazy with the stormy weather conditions), we watched the Shamu show... and figured we'd sit in the "Splash Zone" since we were already soaked!

It would be hard to explain how much killer whales freak me out.  I think it was the massive-eye-slowly-opening scene in Pinocchio that did it.  Or when Jesse is cleaning the tank in Free Willy and suddenly the light comes on and the whale is right in his face.  Nope!  I'd have fainted for sure!  I find them awesome yet very frightening all at once.

And yes, we got splashed, but it was pretty great and fun!

At that point, it was around 11:30 am and SeaWorld decided to shut down for the day due to the Hurricane.

Rach was forlorn and sad about that. lol

So we took off our flip flops and ran around splashing through the puddles and twirling (at least I twirled - lol).  Oddly enough, this might be my favorite picture/memory from that trip.  I grabbed the umbrella just to make the picture cuter - we had abandoned all efforts to keep ourselves dry at that point. :)  

Side note:  I loved that umbrella (purple with high heels, purses, and sunglasses all over it) - not sure what ever happened to it.  

After that, we had the scariest (POURING HARD RAIN) drive ever back to our hotel!  Lots of screaming by both of us, lots of praying, witnessing car wrecks, and at least one time pulling off to the side to hope the rain would calm down - but it just kept getting worse.  Thank God Rach was driving, and that we made it back safely!  

(SeaWorld gave us "Rain Check" passes, but we have yet to use them.  It was a fun place, though, and I can only imagine it's much more fun in the peaceful sunshine!)

I'm sure we had dinner somewhere walking distance from the hotel.  And the next day, we road tripped it back home to MWC.  =)  All in all, we had a very memorable trip!  ...For anyone planning a sibling trip, maybe try to work around the Hurricanes. lol