The only bad part of our trip

We only had one bad thing happen so far.  It was at the beginning, but it's just about fixed.  We stayed at a hotel in OK and we let the kids swim the night we were there.  They were in the pool, maybe, an hour.  Chelsi said her eyes were burning and they were all red.  So we left and showered.  In the shower I couldn't not get the sticky gunk out of the girls' hair.  I washed it several times with everything I could find and it was sticky and felt like straw.  I told the hotel staff as we left the next morning that they had too much chlorine because the girls' swimsuits also completely faded out.  I mean more than I've ever seen fade with years of wear.  He said it couldn't have because it's salt water.  But, he said the heater was just worked on and he wondered if they accidentally put chemicals in it.  I told him I just wanted him to know because Chelsi had burns on her shoulders from it plus the hair and swimsuit damage.  We left and when we arrived in San Antonio we had a survey from the hotel.  I finally filled it out online and mentioned the pool problem there.  The manager contacted us right away.  She reimbursed us, completely, for the stay and then offered to let us stay free if we pass back through....which we're not.  She told us they shut down the pool because the salt level was at 65% which she was then told makes it act like bleach.  No kidding....it turned Chelsi's black hair reddish brownish blackish.  She also contacted her hair stylist friend so find out what we could do with her hair or we were going to have to cut off 7 inches of damage.  They told us to get a cholesterol treatment and leave-in conditioner.  I took her to a local place called Alamo cuts to cut off the worst of it at the tips and they cut about 1 1/2 inches.  They said it was pretty bad damage and basically dried out her hair almost to her scalp.  It stripped it.  Kaelin's was damaged, but not near to the extent Chelsi's was.  That place told us to get the cholesterol treatment, leave-in conditioner and a clarifying shampoo to keep any further chlorine or salt from the week from making things worse.  We also had to go to Kohls to buy new swimsuits for them as soon as we got here.  Luckily the lady in front of us was nice enough to ask if we needed her coupon.  Saved us 15%.

Today the hotel told us they were paying for everything we had to do from the damage.  Luckily so because the stuff that we had to buy at Sally's was pretty expensive.  They're paying for all of that, the cut and the swimsuits.  They were nice enough to just offer it up because of the severity of what the pool did and they said they were fixing it before it happened to anyone else.  We used the treatments yesterday and they worked great.  Chelsi's hair is a little strawish still and Kaelin's just barely, but it's a ton better!  I had never heard of this stuff before, but we can finally brush through her hair.  Situation rectified.  :0)

More Sea World

I'm not near as tired today as I was Wednesday.  Aquatica was a lot more relaxing.  I rode several slides with the kids....big and little kids.  We got there, again, when they opened at 10 and closed it at 6.  We left Aquatica to go back to Sea World.  The big kids wanted to get in more roller coaster riding.  Aquatica is pretty nice, but I have to admit I screamed pretty bad on the zero gravity slide.  The kids were laughing at me.  Chelsi was definitely braver on the water slides than at the Sea World Park.  Jaemin LOVED the water slides.  My little thrill seeker enjoys it all.  He went on Sting Ray Falls with Kaelin, Chelsi and I and loved it!  He wanted to go again, but it was a 45 minute wait and not quite worth that, so he stayed on the smaller slides.  Chelsi was actually tall enough for quite a few slides and some were in completely dark tunnels.  She never got scared of that and really liked it.  No one got burned.  Major accomplishment after staying out in it all day.  We used our .99 drink refills some more and got the Discover Dollars bracelets again, which works well when the worker that loads it actually puts your bracelet number in.  Poor Brian ended up having to be the one to refill all the time because mine didn't work.

We went back to Sea World about 4 and it was starting to die down.  We took the little kids to see Shamu again while the big kids said they got to ride the roller coasters about 10 more times in less than 2 hours.  The Shamu show was different today than Wednesday.  It was 4 whales this time and a lot more splashing.  We got WET.  Jaemin thought that was pretty neat.  The little kids rode the Shamu roller coaster (Chelsi did) and Jaemin rode  the Merry Go Round.  He really, really did well considering how tired he had to be.  He ran hard.  They went to the sting rays and petted them.  Jaemin really loved that.  He couldn't wait to touch one and when we rode Sting Ray Falls you go under them and can see them above you.  We went back for the dolphins right before they closed and Chelsi really enjoyed talking to a little boy who laid on the rocks beside her and informed her all about the dolphins.  They got pretty close, but without food, not close enough.  We did get splashed by them playing though.  Jaemin liked that. 

We ordered pizza to be delivered as we were leaving Sea World and it was perfectly waiting for us as we finished showers.  2 large pizzas are more than enough to fill us after running all day.  Too hot and tired to eat.  Cheapest we've gotten off all week.

We have one more day left.  It's almost over and it has been SO nice.  So nice just to be able to go against everything we normally do.  We got to just enjoy things and let the kids do things without worrying too much.    We vowed just to relax and not worry about the normal worries and it's been nice.  Tomorrow we will just hang out here, swim and relax before we leave early Sunday.  Thank goodness we are fortunate to have this vacation.  I think it's very needed and very nice and I LOVE watching Jaemin see things he's never seen before and watching the kids enjoy things we don't usually afford them to.  Jaemin watching the whales and wanting to go back to see the dolphins and touching the sting rays are just priceless.

BTW, the picture of Jaemin with his headphones is a picture I found on my phone from the way to San Antonio, last week.  The one of him sleeping in the van is after we left Sea World today.  He conked out on the short walk to the van.  :)

Fish are Friends Not Food....all about Sea World San Antonio

We had a great time....really.  Minimal fighting between the parents and all 5 kids, which really, with 7, that's pretty good......7 very different personalities.  The kids are tired, but they said it was worth our money.  :)   Good thing Grandma let us use her condo trade to stay here or it would be a vacation a lot closer to home and less expensive.  They're very fortunate, so are we.

We got there a little before 9:30 and the gates opened at 10.  We immediately went to feed the dolphins again.  Jaemin LOVED the dolphins.  Then we road a couple of rides and watched Shamu.  We did stop for the sea lion show for a minute, but Jaemin was confused and kept asking where the lions were.  He was expecting these big ferocious beasts....ya know.  Jaemin was pretty impressed with Shamu too. We didn't get wet, but he did like waving to him.  At one point the whale stuck his tongue out at us and Jaemin stuck his out, back at Shamu.  It was pretty cute.  Jaemin liked spending time in the kiddie ride section.  Apparently he loves roller coasters!  One of his all time favorite places in the park was standing in the splash zone of Journey to Atlantis.  He could wait there all day since every 5 minutes you get drenched by the ride.  I mean sopping wet, but he loved that.  Another day with nothing but a 20 minute nap.  I must say he did pretty well overall with only a couple minor melt downs.  We didn't watch anymore shows.....just road rides all day.  While it wasn't a packed park, the Quick Queue tickets still got us in a little quicker than plain ole' waiting.  You could tell when a show let out because the water ride lines would get much, much longer.  They probably bought us about 5 more rides each.  Which made it worth it.  I will say that the rides are WAY too far away from each other.  Moreso than the Orlando park, which meant these passes were worth even more because we could just turn around and go back through the exit and reride that much quicker before moving onto the next ride.    The boys made the most of the day and rode the heck out of the roller coasters and from time-to-time would meet up with us to ride some water rides together.

We also bought 2 refill drinks for $8 and $7.  This allows us to fill up for $.99 as much as we want as opposed to $2.69/drink and split it between all 7 of us.  They don't really let you bring things in, so we managed to get in 2 waters, but they quickly turned warm and the drinking fountains weren't very cold.  Even buying water was expensive and we can use our refillables when we go back to Aquatica on Friday.  In all it was $550 for the 2 days for 7 people.  No one got in free, we came out with a tshirt for Jaemin and a bracelet for Cole.  We did take advantage of the bracelets you can get where you give them your credit card and the rest of the day you don't need to find it back.  They just scan your bracelet.  This will come in even more handy at Aquatica.  Who wants to carry that stuff around a waterpark?  We can lock everything else up (the keys and wallets) for the day.

Great time.....5 minute drive from our condo.  Came back to salami sandwiches and we're off to swim again tonight.  Jaemin, however, it WORN slick and will be staying in for a movie with Brian.  :)

Today's Adventure.....downtown San Antonio

It was a very long day.  We spent about 6 hours in downtown San Antonio, but it's so nice and interesting.  In the middle of this city is so much history and so many different types of architecture to look at.  The girls and I perused the mall while the big boys went to Ripleys Believe it or Not.  A lady at the mall told us that yesterday Shaq was at Ripleys.  We probably couldn't have gotten in then.  Today they had Hard Rock closed for a private event.  We wondered what that meant.  The girls had never been in a mall with so many escalators and Jaemin learned that he LOVES escalators.  He had a great time on them.  Jaemin also learned, while walking around San Antonio, that he likes his stroller a lot more than he thought.  He walked a couple of blocks and couldn't wait to get back in it.  No problems with him after that.

After the mall and Ripleys, we strolled on over to the Alamo.  It was pretty interesting.  There wasn't as much left of it as I expected.  The bigger kids and Brian went into  a different area that I really couldn't get the stroller into easily and said there was some of Davey Crockett's belongings, etc.  We saw a bunk area....I did with Jaemin and it was really small.  As in these people must have been really short!  There were only some canons left that we saw, but the little models of what it did look like were pretty interesting.

After that we walked all the way down to the Market Square.  I was expecting a Namdaemun of sorts....nothing like.  It was okay, but could have done without the 20 minute walk (slow walking) each way.   I did find something to get the grandparents for Christmas though and Kaelin found a bracelet, Chelsi found a ring that's actually sterling silver and small enough for her and Chase found a bird call of some sort that he just had to have.

We walked back to the mall and took a riverwalk boat tour.  The tour guide was pretty interesting explaining how all of the cultures made up San Antonio, including a strong German culture and how the San Antonio river was not always called that.  It's now a maze of places to go around because there are man made arms off of it for the businesses.  But it is really pretty!  After the relaxing boat ride we ate along the river at Casa Rio.  They definitely had homemade salsa and it was every bit as good as what the family makes.  I don't usually drink, but a beer sure did go down smooth with my Mexican food after a scorching hot day.

Onto Sea World tomorrow.  Tickets are printed and ready to go.  And since the hotel gave us 2 adult 2 day passes and saved us a bunch, we bought the kids quick queue passes.  We'll see if that's worth it tomorrow, but it's set to be 98 degrees tomorrow and I'm thinking we're going to want to run through those water rides OFTEN.

This was Ripleys.  Brian said it was some tunnel that was dark and it felt like you were tilted, so the boys had to hang onto the rail.

And then there's the aligator that ate so many dogs that there were dog tags and dog collars in the 18 footer.

And the mask made out of human skin....ick!

And the mastadon.

And the boys in front of a chunk of the Berlin Wall.

The Alamo

At Alamo Square, outside the Alamo.

Just walking around....we didn't go, but it's the Tower of the Americas.

Then, the Riverwalk boat tour.

This is gargoyles on a building.  Brian couldn't see it, so he asked me to take a picture.  The guide said the people who built it were very superstitious and put gargoyles and protectors into the architecture.  But, less than a few days after it was built the Great Depression hit and they lost it to bankruptcy.

Beautiful view along the way.

Water was a commodity on this hot day.

 This is where some of the Germans used to live when they settled in.  It's not longer residences.

Then, we finally ate....and yes we chose inside after a long hot day, though sitting on the riverwalk would have been relaxing too.