The Kerry Black family reunion this year took place in San Antonio, Texas. Maybe I was the only one that was a bit astonished that all of the kids managed to make it out there? We did though, and it was my misfortune that the only member of the family that couldn't attend was actually Justin.
At first I decided to sit this one out, but after a fair amount of deliberation I determined that these reunions are just as important, for all of the cousins as they are for their parents. Justin and I decided that I should take the kids and go without him. I wanted to drive, but I was apparently the
only person who thought that was a good idea. Flying alone with a toddler, a baby, two car seats, and our luggage could be done, but I felt all panicked and anxious just thinking about it. Thankfully Andrew stepped up and volunteered to fly to Denver first so that he could accompany me and mine to San Antonio. I'm so glad he did. I would have made it, but my kids might have wound up permanently less happy people had I been forced to tackle that one alone. It went pretty smoothly with him along to help me out.
So San Antonio...I guess I just didn't know anything about that place. In my mind I had pictured a burned off kind of desert. In retrospect I have no idea why, because it's not like I hadn't heard that it was going to be humid there. The Alamo just always looked so deserty in pictures I suppose. Before we even made it outside the humidity hit me and I realized my error. That being said, it was really beautiful and green, so nothing like the image I'd had in my mind.
I think that Andrew and I were the last ones to arrive. We drove straight to John and Michelle's house where a lot of the family was meeting up to wait for check-in time at the New Braunfels timeshare. Our timing is terrible. We arrived just as everyone else was preparing for departure. We spent only a few minutes there greeting people and getting our first introduction to the latest family addition, Atlee Michelle Black:
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| This seems to be her most of the time. She's still tiny, and very laid back when she is awake. |
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| John loves his boys, but he's a total marshmallow with his two daughters. |
From there, Andrew left me to join back up with his wife, and was replaced with Neal. (Since I don't have a smart phone, and Justin has still not followed through on his promises to buy me a GPS, I had to have a smart phone person with me every time I drove somewhere.) We stopped in for our first visit at Whataburger. I still haven't figured out why everyone in Texas seemed to pronounce it "Water Burger," but it was delicious. Add the jalapenos for $.50, totally worth it.
We checked in at the timeshare and after settling in for a bit the family congregated at one of the units for a family dinner. We planned together that night to leave the next morning for downtown San Antonio to visit the Alamo and the riverwalk.
The next morning we left to follow through on that plan. Unfortunately, my dad had a bad fall a few days prior to departure, and while we had hoped that he would be recovered and ready to join us, he was still in a great deal of pain (subsequently it was discovered that he had fractured his back in the fall) and elected to stay behind. Jared volunteered to stay behind with him.
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| The riverwalk is really green, and really pretty, but the water does look very dirty |
After the trip downtown we returned to the timeshare for naps. I have a love/hate thing with naps. I love how happy they are afterwards, and it's great to get a break sometimes, but most of the time naps just get in the way. That killed the rest of the daylight hours for those of us with nappers. We made an evening visit to the timeshare pool with the Hexbergs after late naps and dinner.
The next day we set off for Schlitterbahn. My dad again had to remain behind, alone this time. For anyone reading this who doesn't know (because I didn't know, but maybe because I'm oblivious), it's a water park. A huge water park. It sounded so fun. It will probably be fun for us when our youngest hits maybe 5. I've taken to occasionally teasing Vivian by telling her that we're going to go back to Schlitterbahn. Partly because the way she enunciates Schlitterbahn is hilarious to me, and partly because I'm amused by her look of concern. I'm a great Mom. So anyway, we all went to Schlitterbahn, and we got the group discount which is great because the place costs an arm and leg (but we all loved that it's a one flat fee and none of this nickel and diming business that you encounter at other parks, so tube rentals and life jackets are included). There are some members of the family that loved this day. Loved it. Then there are some of us that spent a lot of time in the picnic area with small children. People like me and my two pregnant sisters, and Michelle with her newborn. My mom took Vivian, Jill and Fox over to the kiddie pool for a while, and they legitimately seemed to be loving it over there. The water was a little cold though, and Ivan crabbed when I tried to put him in it...so back to the picnic area for us. Finally he dropped off for his morning nap and with Atlee napping my mom agreed to watch our sleeping babies so that Michelle and I could take Vivian on a slide. It seemed like it was going to be a great time. It wasn't. The line was super long, she got impatient, it was nap time and she was crabby by the time we got to the front of the line. So parenting fail here, they loaded her up sent her down the slide without me, and I let them. I was so stunned that they were sending a 2 year old alone and holding me back that it didn't really register that the life guard person was a high schooler and I should have just shoved past her. I should have, but I didn't. So Vivian braved a rather lengthy water slide alone in her tube, and by the time we got to the bottom she was a bit hysterical. For the next 24 hours she would rub it in by periodically asking me "why did you let them send me alone all by myself Mom?" So shortly after that we packed up and went back to the time share for naps, and she spent the evening hanging out with her Hexberg cousins. Apparently Devon and Annette made Colton tough it out on his own all day. I imagine he handled it a bit better than my Viv. This wasn't my favorite day of the reunion. I saw the male members of my family only in passing, which I found to be quite annoying. From what I hear they all loved it and thought that it was a great time. So I'm sure their take on this day is a lot different than mine.
The next day we spent the morning at the pool with all of the cousins, and even Dad was able to make it down to the pool area to watch all the little cousins playing in the water.
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| There was one other family at the pool, pretty sure that they hated us. |
After that there were again naps, and in the evening...to be honest I have no idea what we did that evening. It must not have been terribly eventful because I really can't remember.
However, the next morning Paige joined me in my car and some of us set off for the Natural Bridges Wildlife Ranch. I think that this actually might have been my favorite activity. It's one of those drive-thru zoos. This one they provide you with a little baggy of food for the animals at the entrance, which kind of instantly makes it more interesting. There are multiple signs and flyers that tell you to just drop the food out of the car window and DO NOT feed the animals from you hand. Right off the bat we saw the lady in the car in front of us dangling her arm out the window trying to lure the animals closer. Paige and I were joking around about how they couldn't read instructions, and then we turned around and saw her mom doing the same thing out of the car behind us. I guess we're the nerdy rule followers. So initially it was just a lot of deer, and that wasn't terribly exciting. I mean foreign deer. You know, like African deer. They have different names, and different antlers, but let's be real, these are really just deer. Then we looped around and saw some giraffes and ostriches. You're not allowed to feed the giraffes, and the ostriches were just chilling under some trees and didn't seem at all interested in the pellets of food we hurled out of the car in their direction. Next we passed the Rhinos, which obviously you're not allowed to feed, and some camels that kept their distance, and then there were zebras, that apparently approached the other vehicles, but didn't have much interest in our car.
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| John and Michelle had better luck with the zebras than we did. |
We were pretty okay with that though since according to a lot of signage in the area they bite. Then we continued on to these weird deer animals that unexpectedly shoved their ENTIRE head into the car!
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| This thing was fearless, we were not. We were kind of freaking out |
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| Her favorite, and simultaneously not her favorite moment. |
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| Neal figured out a way to feed them, get the close encounter, and keep them from shoving their head in your car. Genius. |
So next up were more ostriches that still seemed to be entirely uninterested in us, but chased each other around in what was oddly one of the most ridiculous, yet graceful things I've ever seen. Their legs are scary strong. The emus on the other hand...I think that's what they are anyway, were very eager to be fed, and like the weird aggressive deer animals would shove their heads all the way into your car. Their entire head, in your car. I freaked out and spilled the little animal pellets everywhere, and then was nervous to roll the window back down lest I get pecked to death by one of them trying to get the little pieces of animal food all over Vivian and I.
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| John and his little buddy. The have a distinctly crazy look about them. |
We finished the drive and then went to lunch in the cafeteria. After that most everyone else left, but Neal switched cars to mine, Paige went back with her parents and I took mine to see the monkeys, the goats in the petting zoo (short-lived experience since my favorite pants got chewed on by a tiny baby goat), and fed the koi fish that were huge and kind of gross. We still had some leftover animal food so we drove through the zoo one more time (you can drive through as many times as you'd like) and got rid of the rest of the food before we headed back to the timeshare for abbreviated nap time.
Following dinner we saw some fireflies, which is exciting. I thought that it was exciting. Vivian seemed to not really grasp what was so interesting, but that's okay. We drove home and found a toad sitting in the road that Neal caught, and took to show his nephews, which I gather was pretty interesting.
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| Showing it off to West and Colton. I wasn't there, but West doesn't look terribly impressed. |
The next morning we got up, checked out and went to John and Michelle's house. Although the reunion was scheduled to end on Friday, nobody actually scheduled a flight out that day because the flights the next day were so much less expensive. So we hung out there for the day, and then I left with my kids to go check into a hotel for the evening Paige agreed to come along, much to Vivian's delight. I gather that the others stayed up late playing card games. My kids aren't so good about late nights, so we got ruled out for that fun.
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| Whatever he was saying I know it was funny, and I'm sorry that I missed it. I think my brother John is hilarious. Hilarious. |
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| It looks so serious. |
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| Very serious. |
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| No idea why Mom chose not to participate |
So there you have it. The next day I brought Paige back, picked up Andrew, and we made our way back to the Denver airport. We said our goodbyes to Andrew (amazing travel buddy, thanks again Andrew) and waited TWO HOURS at baggage claim for the car seats and bag. We actually spent more time at baggage claim than we did in the air. Very annoying, but we spent the two hours with Justin, and it was great to be with him again. After that we stopped at Smashburger for much needed food on the way home and that experience left me wishing that it had been a Whataburger. I don't know that I'll do a reunion without Justin again, so hopefully he'll be able to attend next year, because it's always good to spend some time with my siblings!
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