Since Mike and I will be on opposite sides of the country on our actual 5 year anniversary, we decided to celebrate a little early. So Saturday, after a quick stop at Red Bud Isle to exercise the dog, we packed up the fam and headed south to Boerne, a small Texas town north and a bit west of San Antonio. The Blue Dog Room at Cresent Quarters in Historic downtown was our temporary home. Don't judge them on their website. The room was even better in person and we were quite pleased with the hotel as well. (Click here for more pictures of the weekend.)

We spent Saturday tooling about the town, chasing Abe up and down the side walks, and rescuing whatever treasures he would happen to find in the shops. Intentionally low-key. Both Abe and Dexter slept amazingly well both nights, which always seems to be the deciding factor in how much a trip is enjoyed. To quote Mike after Saturday night, "Both of our animals did great last night."

Sea World Sunday we headed to Sea World to introduce Abe to the wonderful world of sea creatures...in tanks...doing flips and tricks. Shamu's show was a hit and Abe loved feeding the dolphins once he got over being mad at them (it was nap time). He lasted through about half of the dolphin show and only about 5 minutes of the Sea Lion show. The play area, Shamu's Harbor, was an obvious favorite, for both Abe and Daddy. Lucky for us, Sea World has a special going on and we can go back all year long for just the price of this ticket. It's nice not to have to try to do everything in one day.

Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch Monday morning after breakfast we headed East to Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. This is a 400 acre exotic animal ranch whose tag line is "African Safari - Texas style". They have a 4 mile loop that you drive to view, feed and pet the animals. They tell you not to feed them from your hand (to drop it on the ground instead) but that's tough to do when they stick their head all the way in the car! Not nearly as much fun either. Abe wasn't scared at all, much to our delight (and surprise since earlier in the trip he was frightened of a miniature pony). The elk and the zebras were hands down the best. The ostriches were obnoxious; the Emus seemed much nicer, but we were a bit gun-shy after having an ostrich stick it's whole neck in our car and start pecking at us quite aggressively. Many of the animals just stared at us or ignored us completely, but they were still only feet away, so it was pretty cool. Abe highly enjoyed being out of his car seat for the slow jaunt through the park, and was into everything. Car seats - a wonderful invention.

They also had a Petting Barn which should be named "The Goat Barn" because all that barn had was non-hungry goats. What about some sheeps or bunnies? Baby chicks? Actually, there was one goat, we call him Piggy, who was at least hungry. However he was also pretty rude. He would eat any food Abe tried to feed him, but if any other goats showed any interest in Abe at all, Piggy would head-butt them. At least he didn't head-butt Abe.

After the ranch, we headed back to Austin. We still had half a day left, we stopped at Zilker to play. Since Abe is all about trains right now (he sleeps with them and carries them almost everywhere he goes) we of course had to ride the "choo choo". He sat quite still the whole 15 minutes, mesmerized.

We had a great weekend and both Abe and Dexter did extremely well. However, before we had even reached Boerne, we had to make a pit stop because the dog puked in the car. This resulted in a toddler that didn't want to get back in his car seat. In the midst of the stench and the screaming, Mike looked at me and said, "On our next 5 year anniversary, the dog and the kid are staying at home." I'll drink to that!