San Antonio, day 2

Rachel's incubating cold from Saturday metastasized overnight. She felt pretty lousy in the morning, so I took the kids to church by myself.

I'd done some research into San Antonio real estate, and most people seem to agree that there are two areas that stand out as nicer than the rest of the city: the Alamo Heights / Olmos Park Terrell Hills region, and Stone Oak. Stone Oak is too far away from Rackspace for my commuting tolerance (barely under an hour if traffic is light) so I went to the "Olmos Heights" ward.

Good thing I checked it out before buying a house there. The ward skews old. And that's fine, but having lived in an older ward in our Provo house, we'd rather live near people our own age. It makes a big difference when you're home with the kids all day like Rachel is. At this ward, Melissa was the only kid in nursery ("Sometimes we have other kids show up," they reassured me). Quite a change from Draper where we'd have a third nursery if we had the space for it. Her teacher was in the primary presidency so Melissa joined the rest of the primary -- all 12 or so of them -- for sharing time. She sat by Matthew and when I stopped in to take her to the bathroom, she seemed to be enjoying herself, albeit a little bemused by the "Hello, Hello" introduction.

The second counselor gave me some advice on finding a younger area. Most of the yuppie mormons live in Stone Oak because that's where the temple is. But he suggested Castle Hills, Windcres, Deerfield, and Northwood as reasonably nice areas where Melissa would not be the only kid in nursery.

Low-prep stuff from the grocery store for lunch. We put the kids in separate beds for nap and it did not go as well as I hoped. Melissa kept chattering and getting up and chattering and getting up and finally I had to get in bed with her and pin her down, like I used to have to do with Matthew when he was six months or so. Melissa fought but I was bigger, and once still she fell asleep quickly. With Melissa out, Matthew and Rachel and I followed.

We went to the river walk in the afternoon to use our boat tour tickets. The tour was mostly a recital of the history of the various hotels that line the walk, but at least it was shady and green. Rachel kept remarking about how this flower or that was already blooming and "mine won't until June."

Rachel's favorite thing about San Antonio so far is how polite everyone is. I haven't noticed in particular, but I'm (a) male and (b) a little oblivious anyway. Rachel says all the men excusesthemselves and defer to her when they cross paths. "Even the huge tattooed guy at the grocery store said Pardon me, Ma'am."

We had the worst $60 meal I've ever had at one of the river walk tourist trap restaurants, Ibiza. It was in the ground floor of one of the Hilton's. Bleh. Overpriced and terrible service.

We took the "trolley" (really just a run of the mill bus, but the kids liked it) downtown this time. This meant we didn't have to worry about parking, but it also turned a 10 minute drive back into a 30 minute ride from hell during which I really had to go. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I suspect pretty much all downtowns suck in that respect. The driving/public transportation respect, that is, not the really having to go one.

Then we tried to get the kids to sleep again and oh man what an ordeal. Melissa is not cut out for hotels yet. I ended up turning the light on partway so I could catch her faster when she got out of bed to harass Matthew or play with the phone or whatever. Matthew finally fell asleep around 11 and Melissa a bit later. Then she woke up at 2:30 and kept bopping again until past 3:30, when I got in bed with her. Not sure how long it took her to fall asleep after that. Twenty minutes? Good thing I am doing polyphasic sleep or I would have been pissed. As it was I mostly kept her under control while Rachel sort of got to sleep.

Then Matthew got up at 8:30 and I fought a losing battle to keep Melissa from waking up while he bonked around.

On paper I got a decent amount of sleep yesterday but I am feeling ready for a nap already. Fighting kids to sleep sucks.