So this year, we decided to veer away from our typical yearly trips to Illinois and northern Ohio for Christmas in exchange for a trip to the south. We chose to do this because in November, my sister Krista and her husband Dan relocated to San Antonio to begin Dan's physical therapy program. In addition, Matt's sister Izi and her husband Paul live just south of Austin. We decided to make a vacation of it and visit with both sisters and their families!
Day 1 - December 24 - Christmas Eve
We opted to fly to Texas, as a 20 hour car ride did not sound appealing with a baby and a toddler. (Maybe in the future when whining and crying is at more tolerable level.) Traveling to Texas, we had our family of four plus my Mom and Dad. On December 23, my parents came over to our house and we enjoyed opening our gifts from each other and having dinner at our house. The next morning, we loaded up in Matt's Pontiac Vibe and headed to the Dayton Airport. Mom was kind enough to find us a direct flight straight from Dayton to Dallas. When we arrived in Dallas, we rented two cars (Chevy Cruze for the parents and a Mazda CX-5 for us) to drive 4 hours south to Kyle, Texas. I actually booked us a "standard size car" for us to drive around because it was cheaper, but they were out of those so we ended up getting the vehicle we really wanted to reserve for the same price as the original. Mom and Dad actually had to go a little further distance that day because they spent the night at the Stones. We finally made it to Paul and Izi's house for a delicious spaghetti dinner. Kyla had met Gage and Jude previously, but boy did she love playing with her cousin Gage this trip! They are about a year apart in age. Izi arranged it so that Matt, Kaiden and I got to sleep in the master bedroom and Kyla had the guest room all to herself. That night we just had fun hanging out and talking!
Day 2 - December 25 - Christmas Day / My 29th Birthday
Merry Christmas! We woke up around 8:30 and had our typical Focht tradition of monkey bread and coffee. Around 10:30, the Stones and Prices arrived and we opened our stockings and Christmas gifts. After leggos covered the living room floor, we made our way back to the kitchen to prepare Texas breakfast tacos for a late lunch. Mmmm they were so delicious! The rest of the afternoon, we spent time in the beautiful back yard and the kids had a blast jumping on the new trampoline. That evening, we had a turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, corn, green bean casserole, rolls, stuffing, and gravy. It was all divine. Krista even brought a homemade cake for my birthday! Thanks sis! Somewhere in there, we managed to squeeze in some Scum and President and enjoy more treats and coffee. It was a great day and I"m so happy we were able to spend a Christmas with both sides of our family. Truly a special day.
Day 3 - December 26 - A Relaxing Day at the Parsons
Today we just got to hang out and relax. In the afternoon, Matt and Paul went to see the movie Step Dad. Izi and I got to hang out, watch some cooking shows, and wrangle the kids. It was great catching up with my sis in law. I learned about making homemade probiotics, drinking apple cider vinegar, and her awesome gym. We packed up and left the Parsons house late that afternoon and made our way further south to the Stone's house in Selma, which was about a 40 minute drive. When we arrived at Krista's, the smell of fresh bread filled our nostrils and we were starving! She served chicken and veggies and Italian Parmesan bread from her new bread machine. That night, I believe we played some games and just hung out at the Stones house until we decided to head out to check into our hotel. We stayed at the Comfort Inn and Suites in San Antonio, about a ten minute drive from the Stone's house. I wouldn't quite call it a dump, but yeah it was a dump. The beds were comfortable and the shower worked, so I really wasn't THAT annoyed that the place had a lot of things wrong with it, including a missing TV box! Anyway, we slept okay that night but we changed our sleeping arrangement the next night. Kyla was entirely too distracted being in her own big bed right next to our bed, so the next night she got to sleep in the pack and play and that worked much better.
Day 4 - December 27
Today is Sunday and we woke up to a cloudy, rainy day. I took Kyla with me down to breakfast and it was a pretty decent spread with eggs, waffles, cinnamon danish rolls, fruit, yogurt, coffee, juice, etc. We decided to forgo church that morning and headed back over to the Stone's house after making a pit stop at Walmart to pick up a couple things. We decided to go out to eat for lunch and we chose a Mexican restaurant called . It had the best chips and salsa! Matt and I shared some nachos and quesadillas. After lunch, we went back to the Stones and most people took a nap. Matt left to go back to Kyle after his nap because he joined Paul in a "ride along" for the 3 pm- 1 am shift. (Paul is a police officer.) I just stayed at Krista's that evening and we played games and had supper. That night, Mom and Dad took me and the kids back to our hotel for the night. Matt got back around 2:30 am! Night 2 in our "awesome" hotel done.
Day 5 - December 28
Monday! Our week is flying by and we are having so much fun hanging out with family. I especially loved seeing my niece Emma walk around and play with her toys. She even shared her things with Kyla and Kaiden! How sweet. :-) On Monday, we had breakfast at our hotel then headed over to the Stones again to meet up with everyone to go to lunch. We wanted a nice BBQ place, so we went to Bill Miller's BBQ in Selma. It was the same type of food and atmosphere of a local place we go to called Hickory River BBQ in Tipp City. It was delicious chicken and pulled pork. That afternoon, we headed back to our hotel to meet Izi and her boys for a pool party. Sadly, the pool was way too cold to swim in and the hot tub was the temperate the pool should have been. We still had fun though and after swimming, we went back up to our room and ordered pizza from Maar's Pizza. It was decent, but overpriced in my opinion. We said bye to Izi for the last time this trip and then we decided to go back over to Krista's to play some cards and drop Kyla off for the night! Matt and I got a pretty decent night of sleep that night and Kyla got a full night of uninterrupted sleep at Krista's house.
Day 6 - December 29
We finally got to check out of our sad little hotel and move in to an AMAZING hotel on the River Walk! After we packed up that morning after a quick bite of breakfast at our hotel, we went back to Krista's to meet up with everyone. For lunch, we decided on Cici's pizza and it was very good! After our naps that afternoon, we headed on down to our new hotel, Drury Inn. It was a gorgeous hotel. Something different that they offered was a "light dinner" in the evenings as well as 3 beverages. They also had soft drinks and popcorn all afternoon and evening. After we got checked in, we enjoyed some food and drinks and then we headed down to the River Walk to see the Christmas lights. We spent about an hour or so walking up and down the river, taking in all the sights and sounds of all the little restaurants and shops by the river. There were SOOO many people out that night! We were especially surprised by the massively long lines for the River Boat tours at night. After our walk, we were pretty tired so we went back up to our rooms. (Mom and Dad had a room right next to ours.) We put Kyla down in the pack and play in our room, handed the monitor and baby to Mom, and went up to the hot tub! I wanted to go to the one on the roof top, but they were very crowded even though it was chilly outside. It was such a neat view from the roof top! WE ended up making our way down to the indoor pool area where the hot tub was empty. That rounded off the day!
Day 7 - December 30
Today is our last full day of vacation in Texas! We got up and went down to eat breakfast in the dining area of our hotel. They had a typical hot breakfast with eggs, bananas, biscuits and gravy, sausage patties, hash browns, yogurt, etc. After breakfast, I decided to take Kyla to go swimming at the indoor pool. No one else wanted to join me, so I just took her by myself. She had a blast swimming in the big pool, but she wanted to stay pretty close to the stairs. Mom and Dad walked around the hotel and Matt stayed in the room with Kaiden. After we were done swimming, we got cleaned up and waited for the Stones to arrive to go to lunch. We found a Tex Mex restaurant along the River Walk called The Iron Cactus. I have to say that my meal at this place was probably the hi-light of the trip for me I ordered a stuffed avocado and it was insanely delicious. I need to find the recipe. After lunch, we decided to go visit The Alamo. There was a very long line to get inside so we just looked around outside as we listened to some very obnoxious street corner evangelists proclaiming that we were all going to hell. (That was just lovely...not!) We found our way to a shopping center after that and walked around some more. We took more family pictures by the river and then saw that there was not an incredibly long line for River Boat tours so we went ahead and got tickets and went on a tour! Kyla and Kaiden both did really well until about the last five minutes. Kaiden woke up and decided he was famished, so we got by with letting him chew on a vibrating strawberry toy that Aunt Krista kindly shared. After the boat tour, we walked back to our hotel. At this point, it was probably about 4:30-5:00 in the afternoon and Kyla was tired! She did not get a nice afternoon nap that day, so she decided that Daddy's chest was the best option for some Z's while we walked back to the hotel. We did not plan on her falling asleep in his arms, therefor, we also did not plan on her relieving her bladder as she slept. Matt and Kyla were soaked in pee as we arrived back to our room, then Kyla decided her nap was over as soon as she made it to the bed. Matt got to wear shorts for the rest of the day. I fed Kaiden, we got cleaned up, and went down to have a light supper at our hotel lobby. It consisted of baked potatoes, nachos, hot dogs, salad, and lots of cherry limeade, a favorite drink we found. We took another little walk after our supper and then we had to say goodbye to the Stones for the last time of the trip. We had so much fun hanging out with Krista, Dan, and Emma! I can't wait to go back to Texas and visit with them again.
Day 8 - December 31 - New Year's Eve
It's travel day and we are up packing and eating breakfast. We made it down to the lobby for check out with the million other people checking out at 11:00 and we waited in a long line to pick up our car. Mom and Dad were on the road because they couldn't wait for us in the valet area. We loaded up our Mazda CX-5 and hit the road for a fairly uneventful 5 hour drive back up to DFW. We stopped at Taco Bell for lunch, got some gas, and maybe stopped once or twice more for bathroom breaks/feed the baby breaks. Both kids did a great job in the car! The whining and crying was to a minimum, much to my surprise. (Thanks kids!) We turned in our car, checked into our flight, and went to our gate. We were just hanging out there for a little bit when Matt looked at the flights on the TV and said hey guys....our flight changed gates! We need to get moving! So we grabbed all our stuff, got on a shuttle, and found the new gate with time to spare! We had a nice flight back to Dayton as our seats were near the very back of the plane. There were even empty seats around us. The flight attendant said that Kaiden and Kyla were "the most beautiful children she had ever seen" and they should be on the cover of Parents magazine. (I think it had been a long day....) Anyway, I had decided to check my suitcase at the gate so that it was one less thing we had to carry on board. At the time, it seemed like a great idea. But when we got to Dayton, we had to wait at the baggage claim to get it and it was literally the LAST suitcase to make its way through. I'm talking...they turned off the belt just as my bag was coming out. Ha! It was quitting time. It was almost midnight (Happy New Year!) as we loaded the shuttle and made our way back to our car. We piled in like clowns and FINALLY, our travel day came to an end as we clinked our glasses of sparkling grape juice together to ring in the new year. Good night to all!
TEXAS was good to us! Kaiden's first flight, our first time getting a rental car, Matt's first time in San Antonio, my first time seeing Izi's house, and our first time seeing Krista's house. I am so happy we got to do Christmas in a different way this year and it turned out great. It was an adventure, as all trips with young children are, but it was great.
