san antonio - children's museum

ryan gets about three weeks of vacation each year while in residency.  so far we've used all our vacation for extended family visiting us or to go visit extended family.  we decided that this year, we would use some of our vacation to take a family vacation with just the four of us.  since we're in a whole new part of the country, we decided to explore our area a bit and settled on a trip over to san antonio for a few days.  

we headed down to david and julie's house first (to cut a good hour off our drive in the morning).  the trip went fast with good riders and we headed straight to the san antonio children's museum.  its right in the middle of the downtown/river walk area, so we got to see lots of fun stuff as we drove around.

the children's museum had all kinds of fun stuff to check out and the boys had a great time.  

we spent time in this area at the beginning and end of our time at the museum.  it was filled with the little balls that went through all kinds of different contraptions.  every so often, lots of balls would accumulate in a high area and drop down when the light flashed.  cody could have spent the entire day in there i think.

 we found a fun, old-fashioned general store to check out while everyone took turns with potty breaks.

our next stop was in a more science-y room.  we got to build little houses and see what happened in earthquake conditions.  would have been handy back in california ;) 

i thought this was the coolest thing in the museum.  they had a little front end loader that the kids could drive (with a parent).  they just had to follow the sequence of buttons as they lit up and it drove forward, scooped up rocks, and dumped them into a bin at the end.  aside from it being a bit more shaky than isaac expected, the boys loved it!

isaac climbed right up on a stool in the art room and went to town coloring.  he was right at home. 

while isaac and dad did art, cody and i went to the bank.  it had a fun little atm and drive-thru. 

cody gave us a ride in the trolley 

and flew us in the airplane with co-pilot isaac. 

we took some silly pictures. 

the reading room had a little house inside.  upstairs had lots of little chairs to sit on.  isaac thought the rug was a blanket, so he felt quite snuggled in for a story.  after ryan read the boys a story, some random, cute little girl did a puppet show for us.  it was very cute.

we happened to be there on a day when they do a little story time, and we caught it just in time.  the person who led it was very enthusiastic, but didn't have a great handle on the language (she was from south america - i can't remember where now).  some of the songs came out a little strange. 

after songs we did a little painting 

and made little clay....things....by pressing buttons and jewels into clay. 

the museum had quite a huge grocery store in the basement.  it was super fun with little sized carts, real-looking food, and check-out counters that actually worked. 

we had a bit of a snack/lunch after shopping and then spent a little time on the farm.  isaac loved the chickens. 

ryan's favorite part was by far this boat racing station.  he spent at least half an hour there.  there was a bubble station nearby where you could stand in the middle of a circle and have someone make a bubble around you.  it was pretty fun. 

before we were done, we checked out the upstairs.  isaac and ryan became birds.

we had ourselves a little tea party,  

played the piano, 

and the organ, 

and ended with a little dress-up.  isaac definitely screamed a bit when we had to take this off. 

we spent a long time before we left playing in the ball room again until we could go check into our hotel and have a little rest.  cody seriously wanted to just stay and play there forever!