Spring Break!

I'm sorry it's taken me soooo long to blog! I bet you all have just been dying for Hughes updates! Well, it's been a busy few months since Christmas. Darby is plugging away at his 3rd semester of classes. I have been working away, and we continue to meet people. It has been a much milder winter than last year, but it did snow a few weeks ago! We got 1-2 inches of excitement before it melted the next day.

Here's a photo of the view from our front porch before the snow was finished falling, and a little video clip of the falling snow.

The week after the snow, it was in the high 70s and low 80s when my Mom and sister came for a visit. We had a lot of fun in downtown Fort Worth and the Stockyards. Not to mention eating at favorite restaurants like Cracker Barrel. We watched several movies that they had brought along. My favorite of what we saw was Dan in Real Life. I highly recommend it. It was raining a lot the day they were supposed to fly off, and so their flight was canceled. They ended up getting a flight the next day, but I was glad to get more time with them! After we saw them off, we headed South for about 4 hours to San Antonio. We stopped at the Texas Roadhouse for dinner, where Darby had the best ribs he's ever had (and we got to throw peanut shells on the floor).

We got a good deal on the Crockett Hotel right next to the Alamo in downtown San Antonio. We don't mean to shatter your imaginations, but when you think "Alamo," don't you think of a really cool old building surrounded by lots of dirt and land? Well, the Alamo is surrounded closely by shops, hotels, and buildings, even with a wax museum across the street!

Here is a picture of the Alamo. On the right, you can see the sign for the "Crockett Hotel."

Here is Darby standing in front of the Alamo. When we were there, the line was too long for us to want to go into this building you see here, so instead we checked out other buildings. We got to hear the story of the Alamo. Did you know that they lost?!? I was surprised!

And this is me standing in front of the Alamo. I'm wearing a new shirt and hat and jeans from the outlets that we stopped off at on our way down.

This is Darby with the back of the Alamo in the background.

After visiting the Alamo, we walked and walked and walked to Market Square. A fun little shopping place where you couldn't find anything but Mexican food to eat.

Near downtown, we stopped at the San Fernando cathedral, where the remains of Davy Crockett are (I learned that he died at the Alamo. I didn't even know he was associated with the Alamo. I just thought he was like a mountain man. I guess I wasn't paying attention in U.S. History class!) and other Alamo folks. We forgot to take a picture of the cathedral. It's the oldest one in the U.S.

On our walk back, we came across a purple heart memorial for wounded veterans, and I took a picture of the memorial in honor of my Dad.

We walked around the River Walk. This is the most beautiful down town that we have ever seen! It is a winding river with hotels, restaurants, and shops lining the paths. You can pay to ride a boat down the river.

Another view. Check out Darby's finger at the bottom of the shot.

You can see one of the boats. We didn't end up riding in a boat, we just walked and walked and walked.

This was quite funny to us. This is actually a Starbucks. It's also full of their music, where you can listen to any CD you want to and you can burn any mix of songs that you want to while you sip on a latte.

The River Walk is prettiest at night time. Also the most crowded!

This is a view of the restaurant where we ate dinner. We waited an hour to be seated inside. Can you imagine though, sitting at one of these tables, with the atmosphere, and not being able to sip on a margarita? We were dying!

The sign of the place we dined.

You can pay to ride in a lit-up horse-drawn carriage around the city.

Oh, and while we were there we got to see Horton Hears a Who. It cost $4 per ticket! We loved loved loved the movie! You know you've seen a good movie when you can talk about its analogies for hours after!

San Antonio is such a nice little vacation spot! We promise that whoever visits us, we will take you here! On our way back home, we decided to take a "scenic" route that ended up looking like a drive through Acton. No offense to Acton, but we should have taken the normal drive through Austin, which is much greener and prettier! We decided to take an hour and a half detour to take a tour of these caverns. Very cool, as I had never been to caverns. These stretch 6 miles or more under the surface.

Now forgive us for posting alllll of the following pictures, but this is the easiest way for us to show the Hughes family these pictures. On our drive the "scenic" way home, we just happened to come across the town of Morgan, TX. We had to take pictures of some signs in honor of Darby's brother.

This was my favorite sign:

It was funny to come across Morgan City Hall. Yes, this tiny building is city hall. Shows you what a big city it is!

When we were taking the picture of City Hall, we heard a voice from behind say, "What about us? We're the fire department!" This is the volunteer fire dept building. I guess they are just hanging out waiting for a fire. Yes, they are striking a pose for us.

And Morgan gets a water tower, too!