I am a little late in my spring break report, but sometimes the recovery takes longer than the actual trip! I still have laundry to do!

For the past 3 years our friends the DuBois have been brave enough to come with us. It is hard to spend time with us I am sure, we move at a pace all our own. It is called “Ivanovsky standard time”, meaning we are usually late and missing something important that we will eventually have to go back for, or re-buy. It is just the way we roll!

If you have been a reader for a while you will remember this trip HERE that we took to the diamond mines, I mean the diamond park to force/let our children look for diamonds. OMG I just looked back at that trip! I can’t believe at how little they all were…. and Pauls Coke, still makes me laugh.

Then last year we went to Florida right before the oil spill, you can read about that HERE. I talked about the difference between a family trip, and a “real” vacation!

This year, we took the easy way out and got a hotel room! What? No camping…. Yes, I am slacking! Don’t worry, we have a few trips planned this summer that you will be able to read about and thank me later for reminding you why it is such hard work to take kids camping!

I have a little advice about Sea World. If you are thinking of going this is what we did:

• Bought 1 Passport for Paul, they are $99 but you get free parking and 20% off everything in the park. We were there for 3 days so the price difference was paid for in parking alone.
• Bought the rest of us a Fun Card passes for the year, these are $59 for adults and $49 for kids. They don’t come with free parking or the discount, but Paul already had that on his card so we didn’t need it.
• You can bring some food and drinks in. You can have a small cooler the size of a 6-pack (or a little bigger) or soda. I had food packed for the little kids, cheerios, goldfish etc. and all 3 days they clearly saw it and had no problem with it. I also brought in water, quite a few bottles and they also didn’t have a problem with that.

Some advice about the rides and shows… Well, no advice, depending on your ages of kids you will have to figure out what will work for you. We had to split up. The big kids wanted to go on the big roller coasters and the little kids did also! After prying them out of line for “Great White” I took them over to the kiddie park.

• Get to the park when it opens!!! Get in line QUICKLY for the big rides. You will have about 1 1/2 to ride the big rides before the lines are 2 hours long.
• Make sure to see the main shows first. You will need to be there about 30 min before the show starts to get seats. ** Just FYI…. Babies DO NOT like sitting in the “splash zone” at the Shamu show. Just in case you think it is a good idea. Also, phones do not like 51 degree salt water. I have a new phone to prove it 🙂

On the way home we stopped by The Alamo. This is one of my favorite places in the entire world. Honestly. It is really beautiful and although in the middle of a city, seems so peaceful to me.

Wow, I love these girls. They are carbon copies of each other.Look at the thighs on that baby! Why is it just not as cute on me?!

Got sidetracked, sorry.

Then of course if you are in San Antonio you MUST eat on the Riverwalk. It is REQUIRED! We ate the oldest restaurant down there, and now I can’t remember the name! Cafe’ Rio? Something like that. It was awesome, just what we were looking for. Stay tuned to catch the review of the other restaurant we ate at! It was weird!

And this is pretty much how we all felt on the way home! Don’t worry I will destroy this picture before she stars to date, I think she is drooling….

Wrapping up, we had a great trip, it was a TON of fun. But honestly, we really missed the crazyness that comes with our standard camping trips. Maybe because I have to have an extra sense of humor and find the funny when it is exhausting, and we are dirty and tired!

What did you do for Spring Break?!