SoCal Texan: SAN ANTONIO

My trip to San Antonio has been one of the biggest, and funnest things I have done this summer, so far. A few months ago some of the girls I work with and I were talking about Wicked, the Broadway show, and how we wanted to see it. We saw that it was coming to San Antonio and the next thing I knew we had a trip planned. This was months ago, and with the busyness of the end of school, it came as a really nice surprise come June!

There were 5 of us that went: Hillary Goll (1st grade teacher), Jana Sallee (2nd grade teacher), Ashley Crumpton (2nd grade teacher with Jana, and she is in my Sunday School class), Ashley Henderson (music teacher), and myself. Ashley Henderson's parents live in San Antonio and they were so nice to let us take over their upstairs for the weekend. (You would think it might have been difficult with 2 Ashley's, but at our school we tend to call everyone by their last names. So technically, the 5 of us that went were: Goll, Sallee, Crumpton, Henderson, and Levesque.)

We left Friday afternoon and drove to Round Rock, which is North Austin. There is a HUGE IKEA there that we spent a good amount of time exploring. I bought a few little things, like a vase. I did see my entertainment center there marked at $300. (I will talk more about my entertainment center another time.) We decided to eat dinner in Round Rock so we wouldn't get stuck in the Austin evening traffic, so we headed to Chipotle...yum! We drove the remaining 2 1/2 hours listening to music and just chatting about life.

The next morning we were given a pancake breakfast before we went sightseeing. We started off with the Alamo. Here we all are in front of the sight of the 1836 massacre. (As you can see I learned a lot of my Texas history on this trip!) I had never been to the Alamo, nor had Jana. The other 3 girls were great teachers!

Henderson, Levesque, Sallee, Crumpton, and Goll

After the Alamo, we went to the Market and looked around. There were hundreds of booths in a flea market atmosphere with a Spanish flare. We ate lunch at a delicious Mexican food restaurant at the Market. It was the most authentic Mexican food that I have eaten in Texas. (There were very few Tex-Mex options on the menu) All the walking around, and the heat, had us all worn out. We went back to the house and got ready for Wicked! Of course after some relaxing and lying around.

Now, I have heard good things about the show Wicked. I have had the pleasure of seeing 2 shows on Broadway but this was my first traveling Broadway show. Like I said we bought tickets months ago. We decided on balcony seats, mainly for their price. What we didn't know, was that we were in the last row of seats in the highest balcony. Being so far away did not stop the quality of the show, however. It was such an AMAZING production. I had so much fun watching it.

Here we are all dressed up, after the show

On Sunday we loaded up at left to head back to Waco. We did this fairly early because we had some shopping planned, of course! We stopped at the Tanger outlets in San Marcos. I have traveled around and been at quite a few different outlet centers, but this was by far...THE BEST! You name a store and they had an outlet for it. Ann Taylor, Victoria Secret, Crocs, Under Armour, and the list goes on, and on, and on, and on...

We shared lots of ideas about teaching on the way home. This weekend helped us to relax from the year, get to know each other more, and it got us really excited to try out some new things for next year. I am so blessed to have such great friends!

Here I am at the Alamo and a few more shots from the weekend! SO MUCH FUN!!!