Donna's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 7/23/00 -------------------- 7/22/00 7/21/00 7/20/00 -------------------- Donna's Introduction

July 22, 2000

I finally woke up at 8:30, after hitting snooze on the alarm clock for an hour. I'm so glad they now have alarm clocks in the rooms. It would probably annoy the desk clerk if I asked him to call me every nine minutes for an hour, huh?

We had decided to wait until the morning to decide what we were going to do today. I was going to mention the San Antonio Botanical Gardens only ONCE, then never again. So, I read everyone the description of the place on the back of the coupon we had. What response did I get?

"Uh, no, Mom. I can walk through the backyard when I get home," said Ashlee.

"No way. It's just plants, plants, plants," said Michael.

"I see animals," said Katie. Defeated, yet again.

Richard pointed to the duck in the photo so Katie would think there was animals, or at least ONE animal there. She was not falling for it. Forget it! I told them to decide where they wanted to go. I was taking a shower.

We hit the free continental breakfast about 9:30. This experience always amazes me. It's like some of these people have never seen food before. Richard and I decided while eating our Danish and orange juice that we would pay for breakfast the next morning. The kids, of course, loved it.

Guess where we went? Yes, the San Antonio Botanical Gardens! And I think it was the highlight of the whole trip. We had been there less than an hour and I lost count of the times my kids said, "Look, Mom!" Yes, they enjoyed themselves. About halfway through my daughter came up to me and hugged me. She said, "Thanks for bringing us here. I can't believe I would have missed this." :)

The first part of the gardens was cool -- temperature wise. But, when we got way out to the Southwest section and to the adobe and stick houses, it was HOT! The temperature was well over 100 degrees F, and since it was the Southwest part of the park, there were not many trees. Also, I had worn sandals. One tip if you ever visit here: wear tennis shoes!

We ate lunch at the Carriage House Kitchen, the small restaurant inside the Botanical Gardens. It was the neatest place! The funny thing was when they brought our lunches. They must go through and cut some of every edible plant, tree, flower and shrub in the gardens, because we had a plate full of it with our lunch! It was very pretty, but kind of strange at the same time. The kids were amazed at the flowers, stems and leaves. Ashlee wouldn't eat it, but put it on the side of her plate. Michael tried everything. You should have seen him with this shrub hanging out of his mouth. :) Very cute. We ordered Katie, at her request, a salad. She was a little surprised by everything in it, but she ate most of it anyway. Ashlee said her sandwich was "the best sandwich I've ever eaten!" She even told the waiter. So, the Botanical Gardens and lunch were both a success.

We headed back to the hotel to let the kids swim a while before we hit the River Walk. We had swam about an hour when Katie announced she had to go to the bathroom. She is not potty-trained, so this was a big deal! I took her back to the room and she peed in the potty! :) When we came back to the pool, she yelled across the pool to her daddy that she had, "Pee peed in the potty." This was a great moment.

When we tried to go back to our room, there was the smell of something burning in the hotel lobby, and hotel employees running around. When I heard the desk clerk say he was calling the fire department, we headed back outside. Within three minutes we heard sirens about three fire trucks pulled up. We sat outside about 20 minutes, then we walked around the front of the hotel to see what was going on. Richard opened a side emergency door and was thinking about going back in. :) Ashlee was freaking out and said she was NOT going back in the hotel. I finally went inside and asked what was going on. The desk guy told me to stay outside a little while longer -- only as a precaution. So, we sat outside and watched the firemen climb up their ladders to the second floor. Finally, I started seeing people go back inside. We decided we were close enough to an emergency exit that we could get out if it really was on fire, so we went back inside. I overheard some saying it was electrical. Who knows? The hotel was still standing when we got back from the River Walk.

The River Walk was fun, but very crowded. We ate Mexican food, then took the boat ride. We made sure to do this AFTER the sun started going down. We had made the mistake of taking the tour too early before, and it was so HOT! This time it was very nice. We had a great tour guide and the kids seemed to like it. After the boat ride, we went to the River Center Mall and got ice cream and water. Dehydration had set in from being in the sun all day. The ice cream helped. ;)

We all got right into bed when we got back to the hotel. The kids fell asleep really quickly. I turned the TV on and watched part of Weekend At Bernie's. I have to unwind a while before going to sleep. I decided not to set my alarm for the next morning. We were going to all sleep in.