August 2011

Whew, that was quite the journey. Here we are back in August of 2011. Danny and I celebrated being married for four years! For our anniversary we decided to head down to San Antonio and explore the San Antonio missions. That link should take you to the national parks website, in case you want to read about them. Basically there are a handful of missions that the Spanish built way back when Spain colonized parts of Texas.

We also walked along the river walk that runs through San Antonio, visited and did a session in the San Antonio LDS Temple, and went to Sea World. All in all it was a fantastic trip! I even have some pictures for you to enjoy.

Mission San Jose was my favorite. It was the most complete out of the four we visited. It still had perimeter walls,"Indian quarters", the main chapel, beautiful arches, and a mill. I took some pretty good pictures that are on my Facebook. The photos are not professional by any means, but I was pleased with how some of them turned out. I love Spanish Colonial type architecture and I have some nice pictures of that.

Mission San Jose

Mission San Jose (I was seriously in love with these arches)

Mission San Jose (the main entrance)

cacti growing on a wooden roof at Mission San Jose

Next we visited Mission Espada. This one was much smaller but it had some beautiful gardens. Here is a picture of the chapel.

Mission Espada

To be honest, by the time we got to Mission San Juan Capistrano, Danny and I were done. It was so humid that day and it was getting too warm for us to really appreciate. Mission San Juan did not interest me as much. It was still interesting to see though. We did not make it to Mission Concepcion. We will visit that one another time.

Mission San Juan Capistrano

The San Antonio Temple was absolutely beautiful! I was especially interested in the stained glass. I made sure to get a picture in front of it. It is a beautiful place inside and out.

Danny and I outside the San Antonio Temple

After our dinner we walked over to the Alamo. It was not open for visitors, but at least Danny was able to see the Alamo! I had already seen it, but it was nice to say "hello" again. You should appreciate that I am not giving a history lecture about the Alamo on here. If I had updated the blog on time, I might have. I do love history and Texas has an awesome history!

Remember the Alamo! Danny in front of the Alamo.

Sea World was fun! There were some crowds, but overall it never felt too crowded. We were able to catch some shows. I love the Sea Lion show! We also fed dolphins and said "ooo" and "aaaa" about the animals.

Danny and I at Sea World

Danny feeding a dolphin

Danny, Shamu, and me

We were just looking at the alligators when I noticed a turtle riding on one! Silly turtle, that is not a log! Of course we had to take a picture. Maybe it will give Erasmus (our pet turtle) some inspiration.

a red-ear slider turtle riding an alligator like a boss

In August I also began working with the Webelos Den (10 year olds) in Cub Scouts. I am still doing that and I love it! Cub Scouts is so much fun! At the beginning I had no idea what I was doing and the other, more experienced, Den Leader, left. Talk about jumping into the deep end to learn how to swim! Our Cub Committee chair was super wonderful and helped me out a ton! Now, I can say I have learned a lot and have a generally decent grasp of what is going on. 

That was August 2011! I was going to combine September in this post, but I think this post is bordering on "too long" anyway.

Time to time travel again!