texas christmas - days 14-15

Sunday was pretty low-key: church in the morning (unexpectedly, Jed had a PANIC ATTACK in the Lakeway Church's nursery!), and family pictures in the afternoon.  One of Carol's friends came to take our pictures, and while the kids didn't always cooperate, I think we got some cute ones.  We were going to hike at McKinney Falls State Park, but by the time we finished with the pictures it didn't make sense.  So we went back to Laura's house and watched It's a Wonderful Life and ate dinner instead.

Monday was our big excursion to San Antonio, and we started off by eating lunch at a fancy restaurant on the Riverwalk.  We met up with Cassy's sister's family there, and they stayed with us the rest of the time in SA.  Scott convinced Taylor to eat a piece of jalapeno, which had him rather upset, so to make him feel better I had a bite as well.  I immediately regretted it - I hate all things spicy!  The waiter was nice enough to offer me a glass of milk for free, and I told Taylor that he owes me big-time. :)

After lunch we went to the Alamo, of course, and on the way there Laura started having blurry vision and seeing spots (she was 38 weeks pregnant at the time).  This worried Leslie and I, so we Googled the symptoms, called Leslie's friend (and nurse) for a second opinion, and finally sent Laura to have her blood pressure taken at a CVS while we waited for her OB to return Laura's phone call.  The OB finally called back and said she should return to Austin and be seen just in case - the symptoms are typical of preeclampsia - so Laura, Dave Micaela, Amara, and Carol drove back to Austin to see what the problem was.  The rest of us finished seeing the Alamo, then split up to see either Ripley's museum or the children's museum.

Leslie, Scott, Don, Cassy, and Cassy's sister took the younger kids to the children's museum, and the rest of the adults and the older kids went to Ripley's Believe it or Not!, which wasn't quite what I was expecting.  I thought it would have more odd stuff, or record-setting stuff, but a lot of it was just stuff that Ripley had collected from around the world.  It seems that he was as much an amateur ethnographer as a collector of oddities.  We also saw a 10-minute 4-D film, which the kids LOVED - but which made me, Taylor, and George a little sick.  We had bought a triple-combo ticket for Ripley's, the movie, and the wax museum (based on some bad advice by the guy at the ticket counter, who told us that Ripley's would only take 30 minutes...so frustrating!), but we didn't have time to see the wax museum.  We met the others back at the car around 5, and headed back to Austin.