Summer Vacation

In mid July, the whole Hoosier clan and my aunt Susan took a vacation to the Frio River.

We stayed here, in the beautiful Oak Ridge Lodge.

The house was basically out in the middle of nowhere & there was no cell service. We did have wifi, which the kids used some to watch movies on Amazon, but basically, we were unplugged all week long.
And it was really nice!

So instead of watching TV & playing on the computer & our phones, we ...

played cards & board games

put together puzzles

flew kites

played with glow sticks

popped fireworks

celebrated Addy's birthday (a month late!)

roasted marshmallows

and made smores

caught giant beetles

and swam

 a lot!

The house had private access to the beautiful Frio River.

Some of the guys went fishing. Nick did not! Lol

and we all went tubing down the river.

Well except this guy. He didn't tube. He swam!

Susan put together a cousin's camp for the kids

where they did fun arts & crafts

like painting bird houses

and making paper hearts.

Again, since we were pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, we cooked almost all of our meals. 

These two were in charge of breakfast while us girls cooked dinner.

We did venture out to Concan one day for lunch at the famous Neal's Dining Room though.

I thought the food was just ok

But the view was great!

It was really nice to see the kids

being silly

and playing with their cousins.

And I really enjoyed getting to spend some quality time with my family!

This was a wonderful vacation! 

It was like camping, but in a luxury cabin!

Which is just my style of camping!

SeaWorld

On Monday, July 14th, we went to Sea World for the very first time. As you all know, Addy LOVES animals & so this place was HEAVEN on Earth for her!!!

The park opens at 10am & so we got there about 9:30 & got in line. After waiting for about 10 minutes, the park opened its gates & let everyone in. The rides were not open yet, but some of the animal connection areas were.

So we walked around & checked out the dolphins, the sharks

and the flamingos.

And then it was time for our first show of the day,

The beluga whale & dolphin show!

It was a great show & Addy absolutely loved it!

I could totally see her being an animal trainer one day & riding on a beluga whale's nose like this!

After the show, we went to the Sesame Street Bay of Play

and let the kids play in the water for awhile.

And then since they were already wet, we rode the Journey to Atlantis water ride. Alex was a little unsure about riding it because it goes backwards, but he ended up loving it! And so did Addy!

After the ride, we ran over to watch the Orca whale show.

After that, we ate lunch & ran into Franklin on our way out of the restaurant. Addy took a picture with him but Alex was too shy.

Then we watched another show. It was called Pets Ahoy & it was really cute. It had dozens of rescued animals like cats, dogs, birds, mice & even a pig! They ran around the stage doing all kinds of cute stuff. This was my favorite show of the day!

After that, we walked over to the sea lion area

where we watched one perform some tricks

and fed fish & a squid to some of the other ones. The fish looked & smelled disgusting but the sea lions loved it! Lots of them swam over & they were literally jumping up in the air trying to grab the fish.

After that we saw the penguins & puffins

and went to the Conservation Center.

And then we rode the Rio Loco water ride. It was a lot of fun & Addy & I got DRENCHED! The boys thought that was pretty hilarious.

And then I rode The Great White roller coaster all by myself!

At this point, we had been at the park for about 6 hours, the kids were tired & we still had to drive to the Frio River for the rest of our vacation so... We decided to call it a day! 

We had a really great time but we didn't get to do everything that we wanted to. So like I said, this was our first trip to Sea World, but it definitely will not be our last!