It's been a little while since I've blogged. I haven't had the energy, and I didn't have much adventuring to share. Sadly San Antonio has seen a huge surge in cases of the virus. Just a few stats to give perspective:
June 1st- news headlines were touting a slow down in cases with a total of 9 new cases that day, and a total of about 2,800 for all of Bexar County.
As mentioned in Alex's birthday blog post things were worsening so we decided not to take him out to eat for his birthday
July 3rd- Total cases that day, just a month later, were 1,334. That was the second time that week we had over a thousand cases. Total in Bexar County right now is 14,212! Sadly I don't think it's getting any better any time soon.
It has kind of felt like we're back at the beginning of the pandemic when you were hearing news updates every day with new closures and changes. Since things had started to open back up we had made some fun and what we thought were responsible and socially distant getaway plans for the Fourth of July. Dan's niece, Denice, was going to come hang out with us, and we were going to camp on the beach at Padre National Seashore and watch the fireworks from the deck of the USS Lexington. As things worsened Denice felt it wouldn't be best to travel here, which we were bummed about, but totally understood. Then the fireworks were cancelled in Corpus. And then a few days later they closed the beaches! *sigh* They even sent out an emergency alert to everyone's cell phones!
I'm not sure how others feel in other parts of the country, but for our family the past few weeks have really kept the pandemic fresh in our minds. It weighs on our moods and keeps affecting our daily lives. I try not to let my mind wander to the future because there is so much uncertainty, but school is just around the corner and we still don't know what that will look like for the boys. Also I feel like the media is always trying to find someone or something to blame for the rise in cases. I know there was definitely a desire to try to return to some sort of normalcy, but why all the blame. What if everyone was really doing their best and the rise was inevitable? This thing is way more serious than we can really comprehend and I think we're all just doing the best we can.
Here's an image that captures how we've been feeling!
Anyways, I'm really not trying to be a drag, but want to accurately document this unique time in history and how it affected our family.
While most of our days run together and involve us staying home, we have picked a few adventures. Last weekend we drove to Gonzales, TX to check out a few historic sites Dan had previously come across on a motorcycle ride.
We stopped at Buc-ees, a popular gas station/convenience store in Texas. Had to get a picture of their mascot wearing his mask!
First up was the jail museum! Sounds a little weird, but we've been to prison museums in Korea, Colorado and now TX. They're pretty interesting!
This jail was built in 1885.
The first system used to help create a sketch of supposed criminals
I loved all the markings on the walls of the prison. There was something striking about it, and for the most part they weren't vulgar like today's graffiti is in bathrooms.
Ceiling
Original steel doors
Kitchen cupboard
Gallows used for executions. It used to be in the town square but it caused too much of a public problem, so they but it on the second floor of the prison. The last time it was used was in 1921.
This was the key the tour guide was using to open different parts of the prison, and it's the original key!
These next few pics are on the second floor and you could see inside the cells.
This is a picture of the clocktower on the building next to the prison. Legend has it that the last man who was hung on the gallows predicted that the clocks on each side of the tower would never work right again. Apparently right after he died they stopped working, and after multiple tries to fix them they would never sync- some ran fast, some ran slow, etc. Cursed??
After touring the jail we hit a Whataburger drive through and ate our fast food out in the field of the next museum we were going to take a look at, the Gonzalez Memorial Museum.
This musem had a lot of pretty interesting pieces in it, including the actual cannon that Texans know as the "Come and Take it" cannon.
I thought this old newspaper press was neat
Glass marbles
I liked this map hanging above the glass curios
There's the cannon! Funnily enough they built a replica of the cannon right before the uncovered the original cannon in the Guadalupe River. The replica sits outside the museum.
War weapons are neat, but this WWI bomb from a wrecked plane is pretty cool!
Alex liked the walls of the memorial museum because of the shell imprints
This statue in front of the memorial museum honors those who helped defend the Alamo
It's interesting that even driving an hour and half each way to Gonzalez and doing a little touring was a nice break to the monotony of being home all day every day. Sometimes you just need to get out for a bit.
As for our Independence Day we did a small BBQ and swimming with a good friend, outside, and then did an escape room. Covid-19 regulations allow us to do escape rooms privately, so no fear of the strangers messing it up for us. We did a room at Great Room Escape called Anubis, and escaped with one minute to spare! It was a fun room with clues that were hard but made sense and required some teamwork to get through. Yay!
And it's not fourth of july without some sort of fireworks, so we bought a few at a local stand and had a 'blast' setting them off.
I hope you've all found a way to 'escape' your worries and keep searching for meaningful ways to use your time!
Oh, and I keep meaning to mention. Cade has started his own blog, which you can check out here!
I feel bad that our boys can't celebrate the way they were expecting this year. We allow them to have friend birthday parties on their even years of life, so this year was that year for both boys. Instead I'll let them make it up next year on their birthdays. (In fact, that kind of works out since we'll be moving next summer, they'll get to have one last hoorah with their friends!)
With Cade's birthday we were definitely in much more of a lockdown than we are today with Alex's birthday, but sadly since Texas has re-opened its businesses we've seen a steady increase in cases. This week has seen a dramatic increase in cases. Yesterday, in fact, San Antonio had the highest amount of cases in the whole state! Texas is a big state. So, we were going to go out to for a birthday dinner and dine-in for the first time since the pandemic started, but we just didn't think it was wise to do that when cases are on the rise. You have to remember that the data they release to us each day reflects people's health 7-14 days ago, so it's only going to get worse before it levels out. During the lockdown our city was only getting 50-70 cases a day. Yesterday, 408! All week they've been above 200!
Anyways, enough of that, and on to the birthday boy! We kept the day pretty low-key. The morning started off with cinnamon rolls and birthday presents! He got a Dungeons & Dragons starter set, personalized deck of cards (he collects playing cards), a Harry Potter cookbook, the new illustrated Goblet of Fire book, Harry Potter perler bead patterns, a chocolate frog shirt made by mom, cinnamon toast crunch, and...
...the fixings for a BETA FISH! He has been asking for a fish for forever. I was tired of dealing with caged animals and kept saying no because I end up cleaning their tanks and cages. But Dan found this awesome hydroponic fish tank that the plant and the fish work together to naturally clean and help them live! Sounds like a great solution.
He was so excited!
After fish shopping in the afternoon we got the homemade pizza ready and ate some cake! He really wanted a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, and I'd had the H-E-B cakes at some parties before, so we ordered from them. Turned out great!
He named the fish "Darvil", a McBride family name
For the pizza, since we couldn't go to Texas Roadhouse like he wanted, we made a special flavor, Philly Cheesesteak! We only make this type of pizza every so often, so it's definitely a special treat. Mmm.... so good!
As Alex so accurately described his day, "I'm just getting rewarded for living another year!" Lol. Happy Birthday bud, we love you!!
Th summer would not be complete, in my opinion, without some good storms. Before this week most of the storms were hitting areas around San Antonio and miraculously breaking up as they came into town. Cade was constantly disappointed when that happened. I guess we've passed on our love of storms to our kids! Now in the past week we've had 3 really big storms! One even had some hail and the other a tornado warning. There aren't any basements or sirens around here so I just had to use my Midwest upbringing and look and listen for signs of any trouble, which there weren't. (There was an F1 on the west side of town)
This frog seemed to be looking to escape from the storm, and right into Cade's hands!
In Cade's words, "This storm can't NOT hit us! Awesome!"
Here's an ok video of that storm from the radar above. It really was a big one!
Here's a few slow-mos that Cade caught on his phone. Lightning is so fascinating.
Dan would be quick to tell you that the river culture here in South Texas has become very appealing to him. It certainly has been a respite from the monotony of spending so much time at home, and have been a great form of recreation for our family!
We headed back to Guadalupe State Park when the weather cleared. The boys had spent a day there when I wasn't feeling the best and wanted to go back. We arrived, set up an awesome spot right on the river and commenced to eating and playing.
Now you need to look closely at the picture above. Notice the rocks at our feet. Notice the tree stump in the background (the one with a portion of live tree coming out of it). Notice the little pathway up the bank of the river off to the right behind us.
After letting Alex play with a new friend he made, we walked up stream a little bit and tubed down just around the bend and out of the picture. We knew the river was moving faster that day, and attributed it to the storms we'd been having. However, in the maybe 20 minutes we spent tubing a small section of the river, the river started flowing faster, there were large amounts of debris coming down and when we got back to our little site we had set up, the water was up to just below the butts of the chairs. Some kind neighbors (including the friend Alex had made) put all of our stuff that was on the ground into the chairs. Thankfully we weren't gone much longer or we might have lost our stuff. Here's a picture of us taking down the tent to put it up on a higher part of the hill. Look how much deeper the water was than pictured above!
By the time we got all of our stuff up to higher ground that tree stump was almost all the way covered with water. We cautiously went back out to the stump because lots of spiders and a frog were trying to stay dry.
That is one big spider
Even while we were shooting these pictures of critters the water was rising and the current was getting stronger, so we packed up and headed home. As we were leaving an ambulance, fire truck and a rescue team came down to the river. A vivid reminder of just how quickly water can become dangerous. I am very glad we weren't on our other section of the river, the one that took 4 hours to tube. I know it wouldn't have taken 4 hours, but it also would've been very dangerous due to the large debris in the river. You don't want to get pinned down by a large tree stump or stuck in some way!
Since our river time was truncated, I mentioned to Dan on our drive home that we should go on a date! It took a little bit to figure out what we were going to do, but we settled on a motorcycle ride out to Gruene, TX for some dinner and possibly some live music.
We put our name on a wait list at the Gruene River Grill for an outdoor table and walked around a little bit. I'm going to have to visit this shop again when it's open- Rusty Bugs and Roosters! Love metal decor!
We didn't move these letters around, they were just there for us to find! If you need the backstory, let me know
Our table was SO worth the wait, which was only like 35 minutes anyways. Right on the Guadalupe River (a very different part of the river from earlier in the day, but still very full!), with amazing views of the sunset. It was an idyllic evening outdoors.
Our selfie attempt at getting the sunset behind us
And the one a stranger shot for us. MUCH better :)
Now here was the weird part about the evening. This tiny town of Gruene was HOPPING! There were a lot of people out and about, way more than I anticipated. Also up until this point we had not dined in at a restaurant since before the pandemic. No one was wearing masks except the workers. People attempted to social distance while waiting for tables, but we noted how people were definitely out with their friends, not just families. It really felt as if nothing had ever happened. The only reminders of the pandemic were that the servers were wearing masks, the menus were disposable and there weren't any condiments on the table. Dan asked for some ketchup for his fries and they brought out ketchup packets. Otherwise it just seemed like any other night out on the town. Both Dan and I felt a bit claustrophobic, especially in the bathrooms, and instead of continuing our night at the local Dance Hall, we headed home. It definitely made us reflect and think.
Lastly are some pics/videos of other summer fun from throughout the week. It dawned on me that the true "summer" ahead will be shorter than what the quarantine was. I hope we find ways to make it memorable!
How about a slo-mo of a water balloon popping?
Well it didn't pop, but here's a screen grab of the balloon at its flattest point! :)
Beautiful birds in my backyard <3
There aren't that many meals that all four of us go ga-ga over, but everyone loved these chicken fajitas!
Dan captured a picture of this cicada that had recently emerged from its shell!
This kid FINALLY got a haircut. SO much better!
Chess time! He beat me pretty easily.
And how could we NOT mention the historic SpaceX launch that took place on Saturday May 30th? The first manned craft that was privately made, orbited and landed at the ISS the following day. Pretty awesome to witness!
As for my health, I'm hanging in there and hoping for some change sooner than later! :)
