Our 4th of July

We headed up to San Marcos (Dwaine's old stompin' grounds in college) for the July 4th holiday. Alli has been wanting to see fireworks for the last couple of months, so Dwaine and I thought it would be fun to take the kids up to San Marcos for the town celebration.

We decided to make a full day out of it and take the kids to Wonder World for some added fun. Wonder World is a little amusement park with a cave tour and a train ride through a petting zoo. After discovering that the cave tour is an hour and a half long, we opted out of that and just took the train ride.

We knew it would be cheesy but figured the kids would love it anyway. And, we were right. It was very cheesy- think 70's style amusement park- but the kids still had lots of fun...

Waiting for the train. TJ was playing peek-a-boo behind the bench. The boy can't sit still.
Here it comes...
And off we go
little bags of food in hand ready to feed those animals.
As we passed under the waterfall at the entrance to the tunnel, TJ ducked down really quickly and then slowly looked up to make sure all was OK. He stayed down on his belly until we made it through the tunnel, though.

So there were deer, peacocks, turkey, llama, emu and a few other caged animals. By no means the biggest or most interesting animal park we have ever taken a ride through, but Alli loved feeding those deer anyway. That is until one of them took the bag right out of her hand and swallowed it whole. We replaced it with TJ's bag 'cause he was keeping a safe distance from the animals only to have it snatched out of her hand as well (I hope wax paper bags aren't bad for deer).
Then it was off to meet Grandma and Pop after we killed some time at the awesome city park playground. We had an early dinner at Grins (yum!) and then headed to the river park for the festivities...

There was a bouncy house, bubbles, games, a super fun train ride (2 in one day- wow)...
and of course cotton candy! Yum again!
We headed over to Sewell park after Grandma and Pop left.
Dwaine and Alli did a little more swimming. Dwaine used to take frequent dips in the San Marcos river at this very location in his college days. I'm guessing that he never imagined that 10+ yrs later, he would be taking his daughter for a swim in the same place.
We had 2 hours to kill before the fireworks show. I was really hoping that the kids would lay on the blanket with us and rest a little as they hadn't napped at all. NO SUCH LUCK! They were all over the place and Dwaine and I did our best to keep them under control, but it got a little hairy after their snacks and drinks ran out. Let's just say my head is still a little sore from the sippy cup to the head- from TJ's hand of course (although I do think it was an accident- not the throwing part but the part where it hit my head). Here they are hamming it up while we are all waiting for the fireworks that Alli has been asking about.
Well, 2 firework explosions into it and TJ is on his belly thumb firmly in his mouth and Alli is crying saying she doesn't like fireworks and she wants to go home...
So, here we are. TJ was sound asleep by the end of the show- the finale however woke him out of his slumber in fear. We were at least able to calm Alli down enough for her to watch the show and admit that it was pretty, but those hands stayed cupped over her ears the entire time as well as mom's hands over the top of hers for most of the time.

Another funny thing worth mentioning: just as the fireworks started, we discovered that they were on the other side of the coliseum so that we could barely see them over the top of the building. This was apparently a surprise to everyone else in the park as well because they quickly got up and started walking to the other side. We were obviously going nowhere, but it was kind of nice because the fireworks got higher and we now had the entire park to ourselves.

So, overall we had a great family 4th of July- definitely one to remember!