But when Daddy is home, things get a little more exciting. Unless there is some church meeting/event (a frequent occurrence, much to my frustation) or illness, we try to make Saturday our Family Adventure Day. And now that we have an income, we try to make it more than just going to the park or on a walk like we used to do in poverty. Our latest adventures include going to the Children's Museum for the Totoro exhibit, the Transportation Museum (which was closed when we tried to go in December), and the Japanese Tea Gardens.
The kids hadn't seen the movie Totoro for a while, so I borrowed it from Dan. Then we went to the museum and the kids were excited to see the big huge versions from the movie. They loved the other exhibits too and asked to go back many times.
The Transportation Museum was a disappointment to us adults who are used to seeing more exhibits at museums for the price we pay. (We're jaded from living in the Center of the Universe, aka California; we expect more from the rest of the world.) The transportation museum did in fact have a couple preserved passenger trains from the late 1800s that we were able to walk through. That was really cool! They only run the train ride on Saturdays after noon (during naptime) or when a party/school group has made reservations. (We went on Friday, during a 3-day weekend, because they open earlier that day, at 9am.) Knowing this, we didn't tell the kids about that option so there was no disappointment, especially when we saw that the train they use has an open car similar to the back of an extra-long truck bed with benches built onto the sides so you wouldn't actually be riding in a caboose or passenger car. (It reminded me of the "hayride" at the Fiesta Farms where they hitched a trailer onto the back of a riding lawnmower which was so loud it scared our kids.) They had an outdoor model railroad which was really cute but they weren't running the trains that day. (When DO they run things?) The indoor exhibit housed a half dozen cars like a Model-T, a doctor's carriage, etc. And that was it. Fortunately, the kids don't have such high expectations and, although they acted bored half the time, they have been begging to go back!
Going to the Japanese Tea Gardens was amazing! Riding the train at Breckenridge Park is always a must when we go to that area, so we hopped on and stopped at the the Tea Gardens. Apparently, San Antonio had someone landscape this huge abyss which was left by the quarry rumored to have made the stones used to build the Alamo. While it's unknown if it was really used for that purpose, the quarry was in fact the home of the first cement company in the area and the ruins are very interesting. Behind the buildings, they built some amazing structures and bridges in Japanese fashion and decorated it with beautiful flowers, trees, a waterfall and filled the bottom few feet with water to resemble a Japanese Tea Garden. The kids got kind of bored with this, but Rex and I enjoyed it's beauty so much, we made them continue the hike through it, trying to drum up excitement by saying it was like hiking on a campout and finding ancient ruins.
Every time we go some new fun place, every day afterwards, they ask to go back again. (Unfortunately, we just can't afford to take them to Chuck-E-Cheese all the time! We told them that was reserved for special occasions like when Grandma Sue visits....) They don't seem to understand that we'd like to do lots of different things on our adventures, not just the same ones over and over. But isn't it nice that they like these adventures enough to ask to repeat them? Lots of kids require new and over-the-top adventures to be happy, but ours are always thrilled just to go to the park. And even at a park, they prefer to gather/throw rocks into a pond or fill an empty water bottle with wood chips. I love that our kids are still happy with simple things! (Hence the need for building a huge sandbox in our backyard.)
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