Our Anniversary "Vacation"

We had an AMAZING four days on our little vacation. I've included pictures at the end of this which correlate to the things I'll tell you.
We decided to be tourists in our own town and check out the things that we've never done before in San Antonio. We stayed downtown, next to the Alamo, at the Menger Hotel. You should google it; it's haunted! The rooms were gorgeous, as was the rest of the hotel. We spent the whole time "sightseeing" and eating out and buying souvenirs. We walked along the Riverwalk and went into some places that we've never seen before. We went to a glass blowing shop and you can see the picture below of the huge design that hung in the front window. We had dinner the first night at the Rainforest Cafe on the Riverwalk; neither of us had been to a Rainforest Cafe before. It was fun...we got to sit by the giant elephant on the third story. We actually ate the Mudslide Brownie, I'm ashamed to say. It was HUGE and delicious! Then we walked around a little bit and explored the hotel. I didn't see any ghosts, and I was disappointed. Oh well. We got up early the next morning and had breakfast at the hotel and the food was wonderful and everyone was so kind. Then we got an all-day trolley pass so we could scoot around town and not have to walk so much (bad knees!). We went to the old Mexican part of town, La Villita, and went to the shops there. It was so quiet, and in the middle of downtown. We went to a little church that has been there for over a hundred years. It had beautiful stained glass windows and was very peaceful inside. When we were done there we went to the Mercado and lazily walked around, doing a little bit of shopping. We saw some amazing artwork, and the artist came and talked to us about his work. He was so neat; it reminded me that everyone has a story...too cool. We had lunch at the Mercado in a park across the street. Then we got on the trolley again and went back to the Alamo and looked through the shops across the street, which we've never done before. They were interesting to say the least! We went back to our hotel and dropped off all our goodies that we had bought, took a little nap, and went back out to the trolley. It took us around the King District and we saw some incredible houses built back in the day and just more interesting places to visit. For dinner that night we went to Casa Rio on the Riverwalk, which is a famous restaurant here, and had great Mexican food in great surroundings. Then we walked up toward the River Center mall and checked out the little shops on the way. There was a cool one where they were burning incense and selling candles and stuff. We walked on into the mall and did some shopping there before heading back to the hotel.
The next day we got up to an elaborate brunch at the dining room in the hotel. We had salmon and leg of lamb along with anything else we could have wanted. That was Sunday and it was a little quieter around town. We did some driving around the area and saw some of the old town. We went to the Brackenridge Park and the zoo. We drove up to Bass Pro Shop (Tom said he knows many men who would be thrilled to have their wife want to go to Bass Pro for their anniversary!), and looked at all the cool stuff there. After that, we went to LBJ National Park and drove around and then visited their visitor's center. We were looking for stuff on LBJ's wife, Ladybird, because Alex and Evan are going to a brand new high school named after her. They didn't have much on her, so we headed back. On Monday, Evan wanted us to be home to drive him to his first day of high school, so we did that. Then we just puttered around town, taking it easy. The next day we went to lunch with Adam and Emily at a cool place called Artisan's Alley. After lunch we looked around at the works that the different artists had made. They have some amazing stuff there. It was a lot of fun looking at all the works and being able to talk with the people who created it. After that we realized that we had to come down from our fantasy world and go home. It was actually fun seeing the kids and finding out how they did on their own for a few days. The next day was back to normal, but I have that weekend to hold on to and look back on when I feel overwhelmed. We enjoyed each other's company so much that we'll have to do it again, sooner than our next anniversary!