{Day 1} San Antonio

We are back from vacation, unpacked, and I finally have a moment to start blogging about our trip! We did 3 nights in San Antonio but before I get into all that let's start with our "car prize" bag. In preparation for the 6 hour drive I packed a fun bag of things to keep Eva entertained. She does not usually travel well in the car so I knew it could be a stressful day. Before our trip I made a trip to Dollar Tree to pick up a few new things - stickers, coloring books, glow sticks, etc. I kept it under $10 and the rest of the "prizes" were things we already had that I thought would pack and travel well, like her Crayola magic doodle pad and Fisher Price sing along puppy. I am glad I was so prepared but to be honest, she made it THE WHOLE WAY THERE with only surprising her with the new stuffed snake, a new Elmo book, and watching one movie. What??? My child did well in the car all day? Yep. I was pretty impressed. We also listened to tons of music which filled most of our time, and she was so happy to be singing along with us for hours. I saved the rest of the toys for while we were there, a few for the way back, and even had a couple extra left that I stashed away for a rainy day.

And this was our snack stash....seriously, I felt a little silly. Was I packing for a nuclear disaster? It looked like a lot all laid out. But it really wasn't. My tiny little girl can eat BIG. She didn't need many toys to keep her occupied but 5 minutes in to the trip she asked for a snack and was hungry alllllll the ride down, even with stopping to eat a good lunch. The rest of the snacks were super helpful for our vacation outings and we didn't have to spend any extra money there buying little snacks, only meals. Even Sea World let you take in individual packaged snacks so taking this stash of food was very worth it. A little bit of planning and packing saved us lots of money.

Of course even with all that food we stopped for kolaches at the Czech stop! This was a much needed potty break and a tradition we couldn't pass up. Speaking of potty break - Eva did AMAZING and had zero accidents the entire vacation. I was so proud of her!!!! We only stopped once for a break and once for a meal both coming and going. I was thinking it could turn into a 10 hour drive with us having to stop all the time but she did so great. 

Oh yeah, and we stopped at Buc-cee's. This was mostly so Ryan could show me all that Buc-cee's had to offer, although we only bought a disposable razor since I had forgotten mine. Still, it was a fun place to stretch our legs while we waited for it to be check-in time. 

Eva also made it the entire drive without falling asleep....until that last 15 minutes. Of course. We let her sleep while we unloaded the car.

Our first outing was to the Incredible Pizza Company! I found this place recommended on a blog as a fun family spot. We really liked it. I've since read some reviews of other locations that seemed less great, but our food was good (for a pizza buffet) and the games were clean and fun (unlike Main Event). 

One of our favorite games was mini-bowling. Tiny little bowling balls for tiny people. 

Playing games with her Daddy! I liked how kid friendly these games were. We avoided all the shooting ones and had so much fun showing her the silly ones. 

High scorer for the wack-a-shark game? That would be me. 

500 ticket jackpot winner? That would be Eva! Needless to say, she had way too many tickets to spend on the world's cheapest  greatest prizes at the end of the night! Fun family night number one? Check! More vacation stories coming soon...