The things we love, and those we don't

Now that we are past the moving in phase here in San Antonio I've really been thinking about all the things I love about our current city. I absolutely love the side of town where we ended up. Everything is so close. We have a huge shopping center right behind the house with most of the shopping I could ever need. The other day we had to get the cars inspected and while waiting I walked to the post office and then to the insurance agents office. I was having flashbacks to my time in Honduras as I walked down the dirt road where the post office is (they are repaving it) in the 100 degree heat. I might have even been honked at by a group of latinos in a car, or maybe that was just in my head. This week we played the fun waiting game at the DMV for a Texas license and just as we made it to the front of the line, almost 2 hours from the start of our adventure, Abe had to go take the kids to swim lessons. So I just waited and walked home. We have never lived so close to things before. In the heat I was regretting my decision until I took a little detour by the Sonic for a drink. I can't wait for it to cool down some so we can take more advantage of our close proximity. We get a lot of strange looks when we walk to church.

The other thing I really love is being in such a friendly town. Its probably the same all over Texas but you just see a lot of nice helpful people. We were driving somewhere the other day and watched several cars pull over on the interstate to push a car that had died in the middle of the street. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was always that helpful to a neighbor.

There are a few things that I'm not so found of... mainly the military way of doing things. I needed a new military ID now that Abe is on active duty again. I made 3 trips to the ID card office. One day I got there and they had just closed because they close at 4. But there is no hours listed on the door so you never really know. The second time I came at 3 but I guess they close even earlier on Friday because once again the doors were locked. Finally I got there early enough only to find out that unlike the last time I got a new card your "sponsor", Abe, has to be with me. The other options, according to the helpful woman at the check-in counter, was to wait the 2 hours that they were estimating it would take me to get to the front of the line and get a piece of paper that I then had to take back to Abe for him to sign and then I could come back again and sit ANOTHER 2 hours with my children to actually get the ID. Oh no she couldn't just grab me one of those forms, I had to wait for it. Like that made any sense. Needless to say I did not wait and actually was able to find a day where Abe could get off early enough to actually get it done. I feel like I'm finally getting to the end of my crazy long list of things to get done when you move. Yeah! Now maybe we can start doing fun things instead of spending all our time in line at the DMV, ID card office, Tax assessors office, immunization clinic....

The kids are enjoying our move and all the fun things San Antonio has to offer. We have been doing swim lessons the last two week. The kids have loved it even though they have learned absolutely nothing except Taylor makes a great teacher's pet and can sweetly convince the swim teacher to just pull her along in the water rather than making her swim. On the first day the teacher told each of the kids to put their face in the water. All the kids did it until she got to Taylor. She is my child, and I hate going under the water, so I knew she wasn't going to do it. She did put her face close to the water and then smiled nicely at the teacher and said "No, thank you." And that was that. Now I have to find swim lesson that will actually teach them how to swim. Ethan keeps us on our toes as usual. On the way home from swim lessons he re-started an earlier "discussion" about how I don't let them watch tv when the babysitter is here in the mornings to watch them for a few hours. I explained to him that I pay the babysitter to watch them not to watch them watch tv for 2 hours. There was a pause in the back and he starts again.
Ethan: "You pay Darlene (the babysitter) to entertain us."
Me: "Yes"
Ethan: "I think watching tv is fun."
Me: "I know you do"
Ethan: "So if watching tv is fun then it entertains me so you should let us watch tv with Darlene."
I love how he logics through the things that he wants. Not that it changes my mind but I love watching them grow up. Sunday at church they decided that they wanted to go to Nursery and Primary by themselves. They were adorable. Taylor idolizes her big brother and loved him taking her to class. I just can't believe how big they are getting.

We went down to the coast last weekend with some friends from the ward. It was the perfect weather to head to the beach. It was hot but not overwhelmingly so. The kids had a great time and so did the adults.
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This weekend Abe had to work Saturday and Sunday so the kids and I decided to come up with lots of fun things to do. We started off at the zoo early in the morning. Of course it would be the one day that it actually rained in San Antonio. But it didn't last long so we just kept on going. It was better than sweating.

Aren't they so cute!

The goats don't like the rain so they didn't want to come out and play.

After the zoo we headed to a great park on base. This park had everything. It was so nice to have some nice weather so we could actually survive time outside. You can tell from their faces that we take the park very seriously.

After the park we headed to the pool for a nice swim, with the life jackets on since no one learned a thing in swim lessons (but I'm not bitter :). Such a great day. But we definitely missed Abe. It is going to be a hard adjustment getting used to him working weekends and not being around for all the fun. We are hoping to check out some more San Antonio fun this week when my mom comes to visit so hopefully he can get a day off in there.