Winter Getaway to San Antonio

One last post for 2021 with a recap of our winter getaway between Christmas and New Years to San Antonio, Texas.  

We had some airline credit from a trip we cancelled during Covid lockdowns, and we decided to use it to get out of the cold and snow during the week between Christmas and New Years.  We were able to book a timeshare condo at the Wyndham La Cascada resort in  San Antonio and we left at 6 a.m. the day after Christmas, just missing a big snowstorm that cancelled and delayed many flights leaving Salt Lake City.   We changed planes in Dallas (where we had a layover of about three hours) and we were in San Antonio by mid-afternoon. 

We stayed at the Wyndham Las Cascada resort. We love staying at our Wyndham timeshares whenever we can.  It's great having a full kitchen and washer and dryer in our individual unit.  It makes our stay comfortable and convenient.   

Our condo in San Antonio was large and comfortable and located in downtown San Antonio about a mile from the Alamo and right along the Riverwalk.  We even had a balcony with a great view of the downtown skyline.   This vacation was very different from our other getaways in 2021 which were more out in nature. This one was right in the middle of a big city.  

One of the first things we did in San Antonio was got to Historic Market Square, which is an authentic, traditional Mexican marketplace. 

There are lots of shops both inside and outside. 

It  is a truly fun and festive place.  

Here are some of the fun things we brought home from Historic Market Square - a Peruvian Creche, a Mexican cross-body tote bag/purse and some special Christmas ornaments to help us remember our visit to San Antonio. 

We didn't buy a lot, but it was sure fun to look around.  

We went to the historic San Fernando Cathedral.

It is the final resting place of some of the heroes of the Alamo. 

The Cathedral is lovely and peaceful inside.  We went in and stayed a while, just enjoying the nice spirit of peace that we felt.  God can be felt in many different places. 

There is a cool laser light show at the San Fernando Cathedral.  It is the history of Texas in laser lights and music, projected onto the Cathedral itself.  It was one of the most unique things I had ever seen. These are some of the pictures of the show.  It was free and very much worth seeing.  

On the way back from the laser light show at the cathedral, we saw the Brexar County Court House all lit up for Christmas.  It was pretty. 

Of course, when in San Antonio, one simply must see The Alamo and we did. 

It's an interesting piece of history that we saw on our first vacation to San Antonio when our kids were little about 26 years ago.  

Josh had never seen The Alamo since he wasn't born the first time we visited.  He liked it and Charly and I enjoyed seeing it again. 

We all enjoy learning about history and there is plenty of history in San Antonio.

The Riverwalk is another iconic San Antonio attraction. We enjoyed walking there, even though it was quite crowded. 

The Riverwalk is especially beautiful at night.  

We also enjoyed walking along the Riverwalk away from the downtown area. 

It is a lovely place to walk. 

This part of the Riverwalk was right right behind the condo where we were staying. 

The weather forecast for more another big snow storm in Utah put the spectre of cancelled and delayed flights going home from our little winter vacation, so we ultimately changed our plans and returned home a day early, hoping to beat another storm.   Most of our flights were just fine, with no delays or other problems.  Most of our flights - until our very last flight Wednesday night from Phoenix to Salt Lake City.  When we reached the gate at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, our flight was ontime, however, that soon changed. There was a computer issue in the plane that kept us at the gate for about an hour, then, when that was resolved and we taxied out to the runway, only to have to return to the gate, when the pilot went over the number of hours he was allowed to be in the air.  Fortunately, after another wait on the plane, another pilot arrived to take over and fly us safely to Utah, but we were over three hours late getting home.  We arrived home after 3 a.m. Thursday morning.  We are grateful to be home safely with some nice memories from our trip to San Antonio.  

😊Deb💙

"Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer." 

~Anonymous

 

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

In my last blog post, I signed off for the year, then promptly realized that I would want to do a post about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in our home.  Each year, I have my blogs printed up in book form as a kind for family record, and Christmas simply must be included in that!  So here is what our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was like. After this post, I will sign off for the year.  Really.  

Thursday evening (the night before Christmas Eve), I baked these little mini-loaves to give to neighbors who brought by good plates.  They were delivered, along with a family Christmas card, on Christmas Eve. (You can see how imperfect my mini-loaves are - baking is not good for my self-esteem.  😉 )

Christmas Eve morning was busy.  I had to make a quick run to a store and then last-minute gift and goodie deliveries, to make sure we didn't leave anyone off of our list! 

Charly and I took our walk after lunch.  I thought the bush with red berries at the bottom of the picture was beautiful, but this picture didn't do it justice.  It was a cloudy day, but not terribly cold. Last night's rain melted most of the snow on the ground around here. 

We got a couple more cards today, and the door has filled up nicely.  I suspect that a few more cards will find their way here after Christmas. 

We decided to do something different for Christmas Eve dinner this year.  We got take-out from our favorite Chinese place. 

It was excellent as usual - a real Christmas Eve treat. 

After dinner, we watched The Christ Child - A Nativity Story.  It is a powerful and touching portrayal of the birth of Christ.  

This was the scene in our living room on Christmas Eve while we watched some Christmas movies. We watched a Christmas movie from Netflix, My Dad's Christmas Date, which is a cute romantic comedy about a teenage girl trying to find a girlfriend for her widowed father.  We also watched the uncut long version of It's a Wonderful Life. 

We all opened one present on Christmas Eve. We have done this since all of our kids were very little - a family tradition of sorts - when little ones just couldn't wait until Christmas morning.  Everyone could pick out one gift to open the night before. 

Charly's Christmas Eve present was a book he had been wanting.  Books are always great gifts for Charly and I. 

We had a nice Christmas Eve, but we stayed up too late watching movies and reading.  I finished another book, The True Story of St. Nicholas: Why He Matter to Christmas by William J. Bennett

Christmas morning, we opened gifts after we were all up, which was fairly late in the morning.  We no longer get up at the crack of dawn to "see what Santa brought."

We all got lots of thoughtful gifts and things that were on our "wish lists."

Charly got lots of books, a couple of games and some gift cards.

He was very pleased with everything. 

These are my Christmas gifts.  I liked everything a lot.  I got two $50 gift cards, books, and dvd movies.  Charly knows my rather unique and eclectic tastes in books and movies well.  😊

Charly also gave me this lovely hummingbird wind chime.  

It is now hanging from the ceiling in the office.  It is so beautiful.  Charly bought it for me in a little shop in Ely, Nevada when we went to Great Basin National Park last October.  

These are Charly's gifts.  He got also got two $50 gift cards to Barnes and Noble for even more books!  

These are Josh's gifts.  He needed new clothes badly, and he got them.  He also got an Old Navy gift card for even more clothing!

Charly and I were both tired and decided to take Christmas off from walking. We spent the afternoon relaxing on the couch watching one of my new movies (For Love Alone, which, we found out is fictional and NOT an autobiographical account of the marriage of Donald and Ivana Trump.  Some portions of the fictional Adam Graham character are clearly based on The Donald. It was a sappy 1990s movie that turned out to be an adoption reunification story instead of just an account of two adulterous rich people. It was humorously bad but doesn't have any language or real sex other than a couple of 1990s vintage bare-shouldered bed scenes.  Don't be too disappointed if you missed this movie.  Charly is glad he purchased it from a DVD clearance catalog for a bargain-basement price.  I was mildly interested in the Trump wives after reading Mary Trump's book Too Much and Never Enough and All the President's Women by Barry Levine). When the movie was over, I finished the audiobook of The Christmas Promise by Donna VanLiere. I will be reviewing that in my December reading round-up which I will post the first week of January. 

Just before I was ready to publish this post, my younger daughter texted me these pictures of their Christmas celebration.  Looks like they had a nice time. We were very happy to have the pictures.  We love and miss each grandchild so much!!

We are happy to have the pictures and see how their Christmas went. We haven't seen these grandchildren in person for almost three years. They have sure grown up.  We hope that the coming year will bring reconnection with them. 

With that, I will close this blog for the year 2021, and take a short blog break.  I am grateful for a Merry Christmas, filled with good people and thoughtful gifts and of course, the most important gift which is Jesus Christ. I will be back in 2022 and hope to see you all then!

😊Deb💙

"Happy New Year! Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go. They merely determine where you start."

~Nido Qubein