San Antonio, day 1

We're in San Antonio for a job interview with Rackspace. Rackspace paid for the whole family to come down for five so Rachel and I can look at some houses while we're here. We may also go to Sea World, although Rachel got a bit of sticker shock at the price (about $175 for the family).

The flight itself was surprisingly pleasant. Melissa amused herself almost the entire time with her Go Paint set. Matthew had one too, and started playing it when Melissa got hers out. He lasted a few minutes, then went back to his "game boy." The Coleco system is great for trips because it has a ton of games that he can't lose. Sorry, it's not in production anymore, but maybe you can find one on ebay. Which reminds me, I need to get one of these too while I still can.

We got the Go Paints at Toys R Us with a gift card Rachel's grandparents sent the kids. I let them browse the whole store and that is what they wanted. Normally I wouldn't get such expensive craft materials -- watercolors cost what, a dollar? -- so I told them we would save it for our next flight. I'd completely forgotten about them, but when we were packing Matthew dragged me over to the closet where I'd stashed it -- out of sight, I thought -- and reminded me that those were for the flight. I'm glad he did! I told Rachel, Wow, the kids are so good I'll need to pack some toys for us next trip! I'm thinking the two-player Settlers card game.

Of course, by then we'll probably have number three. So never mind.

Matthew did spend the last fifteen minutes of the flight moaning and shrieking that his ears hurt and he hated planes. No doubt his ears did hurt but man I hate his hysterias. Like when he bashed his toe and there was blood all over but he acted like he'd severed his whole leg until he got a lollipop and then everything was fine. This time Rachel gave him gum and water and nothing helped... until she gave him a lollipop. Magic. I'm glad she was sitting next to him instead of me.

When we got to the hotel, Rachel was hungry but in the mood for some non-fast food that was not Mexican. That was harder to find than we thought. (San Antonio is majority Hispanic, which probably has something to do with the popularity of Mexican food here.) After a few brushes with the crack San Antonio Traffic Obstruction Team, aka construction workers, and realizing that a lot of roads were one-way but not indicated as such on our crappy hotel map, we ended up going to the downtown mall because we figured they'd probably have some generic chain restaurant that fit the bill and we were tired of looking around. (It turns out that there's a trolley that goes downtown from near the hotel, so if we go there again that is probably the way to go.)

We got tickets to the riverwalk boat tour but postponed our actual tour until tomorrow since everyone was hungry and tired. So after lunch at Chili's -- our waitress was so awesome that I had to flag down another one and ask her to run my card because ours had disappeared again -- we went back to the hotel for naps. The kids kicked each other for the better part of an hour before going to sleep. I had a splitting headache, so Rachel heroically rode shotgun while I put my earplugs in and pulled a hat over my eyes and slept. (Rachel did get a nap too after the kids finally fell asleep.)

After naps we set out for a grocery store to get some fruit and oatmeal so we weren't subsisting entirely on restaurants. (Also it turned out that "baby" wanted popcorn and ice cream. Who knew. ;) Unfortunately Google woefully mislead us -- there is a HEB grocery store in the area, but it is about a mile from where Google said it was, and not on Main Ave at all. We did get the GPS option on our rental car so we asked its opinion, and it took us cross-town to a decidedly non-upscale grocery store. But it had fruit and oatmeal and popcorn and ice cream so all was forgiven.

When we got back again, we watched the first half of Spirited Away and then went to bed. It looks like the ward in whose boundaries we'd be most likely to find a home meets at 9:00, dammit. I hate feeling rushed in the morning, especially on a "vacation."

(So are we moving? With the baby due in August and Rachel really wanting to have it with her Utah midwife there is a pretty high bar to clear for this to get the thumbs up. But it could happen.)