Do you know the way to San Antonio?

I went to San Antonio two weekends ago to attend this sweet girl's engagement party. It was so much fun seeing old friends and hanging with my nieces and nephews. Epecially because I'm the favorite aunt of course (right guys?). I didn't know how else to include all of the photos of my marvelous trip, so I smashed them all together. If you want to click on them for more detail I promise they're not way too huge. Plus if you want to read some of the smaller text you'll probably have to do so.

The first two photos were after I first got there. I hadn't seen Narci for a year or more so he just stared blankly at me while he ate his homemade blue cotton candy. He warmed up to me pretty quickly though and he and I made chocolate rock soup on the bleachers while Kylie and Malikai had practice.
How to get your 5 year old niece who won't let her mother touch her hair (it's a daily battle) to let you braid her hair for cheer practice? Pull the cool auntie card of course.
"Kylie, do you like my hair (it was braided)?"
"Oh yes!"
"Do you want me to do yours just like mine?"
"Yes, please!"
Works every time.
They seriously work those little boys so hard. Malikai was totally beat after a 3 hour football practice in the humid SA heat.
P.S. These little babes are a quarter Mexican (my sister Melinda's husband is half) hence their beautiful olive skin. Does this make me sort of cool by association Vickie?

Zee party. I may or may not have had crushes on one or two of these boys (*cough* the two on the right *cough*) at some point in my life (we're talking yeeears ago). Jaimie and I were overachievers together (volleyball, cheer, NHS, Student Council, S2S, Academic Decathlon, FCA, etc etc. Keeping in mind my school was bite-sized).
By the way Christina, the boy in the plaid was the one I commented on your blog about Copeland about.

It was so hot and humid it was insane. I forgot how much I hate humidity. San Antonio was quick to remind me. P.S. I don't necessarily recommend going to the River Walk on a Saturday night. There were wayyy too many people out.

Yeah, I just LOVE this place.

When we started the hike Maddie says to me "I'm a princess, but I'm climbing this mountain!"
Story of my life Maddie, story of my life.

Enchanted Rock. Can you believe this little barely turned 3 year old hiked the entire thing with me??

My sister Kerstin is in the Young Women's presidency in her ward, and hiking this was one of their activities. She just so happens to be more than a little prego and had 1 year old Ty with her, so there was no way she could hike the entire thing with him on her back. Maddie was pretty adamant about hiking "the mountain", so I agreed to help her. I kept saying "Okay Maddie, let's turn back when we get to that rock or that tree" thinking there's no way we're going to hike all the way up and she's going to be okay walking all the way back down. She kept saying "we're not at the top yet!" Duh, Leah. So we hiked the whole way.

She got a little scared once we were up there because it was pretty windy. When we began our descent, she started to cry a little. I gave her a little pep talk about being a big girl (I should be pretty good at these as I received quite a few from Kiana while growing up) and there wasn't another complaining peep from her as we hiked all the way back to the bottom (and to her mom).

Something that makes this place a little extra special for their family is that Kerstin and Matt got engaged here many many moons ago. Cute.

Ty is the cutest with his little curly locks.
After the hike we headed to Fredericksburg (originally settled by German settlers). I didn't really get any great pictures from our trip there (top left and middle two), but this town is so ideal! It's located in the Texas hill country and is definitely my favorite little town to visit. We used to go pick peaches there every summer, but they had a freeze in April and lost all the crop! And I was so looking forward to getting my usual fresh peach cobbler with homemade peach ice cream.

The photo on the middle left is of a girl I couldn't help laughing at. I know I'm terrible...but really she's that serious about her cowboy boots that she has to wear one even though her other foot is in some type of brace?

The bottom left photo is to show you that it's totally the norm and even encouraged to wear your cowboy boots to church (I believe Kari's already got this covered). These are Malikai's. Talk about Sunday best! JP. Really most people don't wear them, but oh how I love it when they do.

Lastly, Maddie and I saying peace out. We went to Texas Thrift, my local stomping ground in high school. I purchased many a little boys t-shirt here (including a Spiderman one I dearly miss.) in those days.

You see guys, Texas isn't all that bad. I've had some pretty wonderful experiences and met some really awesome people there. If you're still not convinced, go back and read another one of my little guides to San Antonio here.

Longest post ever? But really, it's not like I could have left anything out!