I'm Allergic to San Antonio!

So, I'm not really allergic to San Antonio, but on our New Year's trip down south, I had major allergy issues. Something must have affected me with all of these different cold fronts and parts of Texas that I visited over the holidays, because I had watery, red, itchy eyes and I COULD NOT breathe through my nose. I also went through so many kleenex that my nose was rubbed raw - definitely, not fun. I am still getting over the sniffles, but I am no longer relying on Mucinex or Claritin for relief. We met our good friends Brantley and Adrienne in S.A. to celebrate their 5 year wedding anniversary, ring in the new year with fireworks, etc., and eat good food. We had a blast! Adrienne and I were also able to get in some good shopping time, as well. It was so fun to look at little girl baby clothes with her, since she just found out that they are having a girl!

We also spent a day at Sea World, and I felt like a kid again. My favorite show was the sea lions, Clyde and Seymour - I thought it was hilarious when they "barked!" Plus, there is a little sea otter that makes random appearances throughout the show - what a cutie! I also touched a dolphin. Even though they are have a very tough skin, it is definitely as smooth as I expected - I have always wanted to touch a dolphin, and I remember visiting Sea World as a kid and not being able to do this each time, so I guess this was a kind of a dream come true for me.

While I am so happy that I experienced a New Year's Eve with over 250,000 people, I think once was enough. It was cool to see the countdown on the needle in San Antonio followed by an excellent fireworks display in Hemisfair park, but I did not enjoy trying to get back through the crowd to our hotel after it was over. We tried to stay together as a group, but we were separated when a fight broke out between some girls and Brantley had to take a punch to shield Adrienne from getting hurt. Let me just say that as a junior high teacher, I can attest to the fact that girls in fights are vicious, and this fight was no exception. I couldn't tell if it was two separate groups fighting or if it was two guys on one side and two girls on the other side but who happened to be fighting over the same thing, but whatever the situation, we were caught in between and for a few minutes, I was worried we would be stuck there. It finally moved on, and we were able to get out, and I was so grateful to make it back to our nice, warm room at the Hyatt. Can I take a moment to say that combined with the cold weather, the large group of people, and the difficulty of keeping up with everyone in a group, that this was not the place for young kids, however, I saw and tripped over multiple strollers and kid carriers. I have to ask the parents who think this is a good idea, "Really? That seemed like a good parenting decision? Really?" Hopefully, I will not become one of these crazies whenever we have kids.

Neal and I just thought that our trip was ending on Saturday and that we would have a day to relax before school started back up, but my car had other plans! We left San Marcos (yes, we hit up the outlet mall) at about 6:00 pm and began the trip back to Fort Worth, and just south of Austin (in Buda, which I am told is the outdoors capital of Texas), the car would no longer accelerate. Neal steered us over to the shoulder of I-35 where we sat for about an hour and a half calling our insurance's roadside assistance looking for towing companies and any place that might still be open to fix our car. When we realized that nothing would be open on a Saturday night, we found out about a Firestone that would be open on Sunday morning and called a tow service to take us to a nearby hotel for the night. I would like to thank Brantley and Adrienne for putting up with our multiple calls to have them look up hotels, towing services, and auto repair shops in the area on their Iphones. It is currently Neal's wish to have an Iphone, but I am actually trying to fight it, because I do not want to get one and become totally dependent. However, I will concede that Iphones did help us on Saturday night!

We ended up meeting Casey, our tow truck operator who shared with us that last year on New Year's Eve, he was hit in the jaw by someone with a sledgehammer who didn't want his truck to get repossessed. Casey only has four real teeth on his bottom jaw, has metal plates in his face, went through extensive plastic surgery, and had to go on disability for most of the year. Fortunately, the guy was caught and is now in jail for the crime. My face hurts just thinking about what he went through! So, Casey towed us to a brand new Comfort Suites where we actually had a very relaxing wonderful night. We hung out at the hot tub, had cookies and milk, finally had a king size bed (our hotel in San Antonio only had rooms with two double beds available by the time we booked our room), and walked to McDonald's for a gourmet dinner of chicken nuggets and french fries. In the morning, we called another tow (after a delicious filling breakfast) and spent the day at Firestone while they took apart my car and put it back together again. The problem was apparently the timing belt which is supposed to be replaced after 60,000-70,000 miles and I have about twice that many miles on my car. This belt is supposed to have notches all the way around that fit into other parts of my car, but my belt had places where those were completely worn off. We are so lucky that it didn't cause any other serious damage and that they were able to replace it and get us back on the road that afternoon.

As I was sitting in the waiting area with Neal, I began to think about how grateful I am that we could afford to get our car taken care of, that we were even able to go on this trip in the first place, and that we both stayed remarkably calm during the entire situation (even though, we were both panicking on the inside). I thought of this, because Neal and I both like to watch Sunday afternoon football, and as we were watching the Texans beat the Patriots (Yay for their first winning season!) and Dallas shut out the Eagles on a little tiny television that had a glare from the flourescent lighting in the waiting room, the manager at the Firestone said to us, "Sorry, you have to watch this on such a bad television." I wanted to say, "Are you crazy? I may take for granted that we have a nice TV at home, but I am so blessed to get to watch TV at all." There were quite a few people that came in to get their cars worked on who couldn't pay for stuff that only cost $50-$70 or who had to spread out the repairs their car needed, because it would be too much at once. Even though we aren't making as much as we did at one point, Neal and I are still very well off compared to much of the world. We are truly blessed, and I am thankful to have been reminded of just how much I have to be grateful for. And, now my car is working again - even more to be thankful for!

We did make it home last night, and I am now back to work preparing my kids for their semester exams next week. Sorry I don't have pictures this time around, but I let Adrienne take them all, since it is silly to have two cameras taking the exact same pictures all weekend - plus I am kind of scared to see myself in the photos from this weekend since I wore glasses most of the time and everyone kept asking me why I was crying (I wasn't really crying, but my allergies really were that bad.). I promise to have more pics in the next post! Happy New Year!