Die jungen Kinder von Trinity Oaks

 

Here is the paid longhorn that is always hanging out at the entrance to the Berg’s Trinity Oaks neighborhood. She (or he) greeted us with a cold stare. I suggested Christoph get out of the car to pose for a photo but he knew better.

 

Moo

 

Last night we did some playing over at the Berg’s house. The girls were pretty wild. Christoph said he’s the second youngest of his cousin (just like me) so maybe he’s not fully comfortable with wild young ones.

 

Smack down: The tackling of Sue.

 

3, 2, 1 . . . Maddy is the champ!

 

We haven’t seen Steve yet as he was busy supervising a middle school choir concert. This morning we’re going to Fredricksburg to check out the World War II War in the Pacific museum. Fredricksburg is described as being a “German” town. We’ll see.

Cowboy

 

Hey, hey! Hello from the Alamo Café!

This morning after sleeping in (730 for us and 930 for C-Gru) Sue cooked up a batch of waffles in the shape of Texas. Lecker (Delicious).

Then we headed downtown for a stroll around the Riverwalk and a visit to The Alamo. The Riverwalk is the #1 tourist destination in Texas. San Antonio receives 25 million visitors every year. That’s a lot of walking along the river.

We got on the river boat in front of the Hilton Hotel that was famously built in 200-some working days in time for the 1968 World’s Fair.

What can we say about this photo?

We visited The Alamo and promised to keep on remembering The Alamo.

And we strolled around the gardens behind The Alamo.

 

For something different than the usual, we had a steak lunch at Saltgrass Steakhouse on The Riverwalk. Christoph and I had the “chicken-fried steak” which is the southern US version of “schnitzel”.

 

No trip downtown is complete without a visit to San Fernando Cathedral which is from 1730. How’s that as an example of something old in the US?

And then we met up with Liz and the girls at the gymnastics gym on highway 46. That’s niece Bella in the middle of the photo wearing pink. We got a photo of the American Schnitzelgrube (giant pit of foam strips for crash landing in).

Everything’s Bigger (on your way) to Texas

 

We made a quick exit from work and school yesterday to catch our late afternoon flight to The Nation of Texas.  Somehow flying in the afternoon seems to take less time.

Things went so smoothly that we had time to introduce Christoph to Chick-Fil-A.  He was amused at the amount of ice in his soda and found the “no refills” at the Concourse C a bit disarming (I guess he has become accustomed to this American phenomenon. 

We’ve had a good travel year (and one loyal to Delta and friends) so we have Silver medallion status so we now have an outside chance of getting upgraded to first class if there is space available among the road warriors.  It make it even more Las Vegas style, you can watch your name on a list to see where you are in line and how many seats are available.  Yesterday morning, we were #4-5-6.  When we got to the airport, we were #1-2-3 for either 1 or 0 seats (it was hard to tell).  We had discussed whether this was an all or nothing proposition and decided to take anything we got.    

My name was called just as boarding started.  A few minutes later, Christoph got on the plane and said “I’m in first class, too”.  I thought he was kidding but there he was with a 1st class boarding pass.  “Poor Doug” was still in economy but snapped a paparazzi-style picture as he boarded. 

We stopped at the Alamo Café for dinner on our way to The Berg Estates of South Texas.  Christoph declared himself full from the first class meal and opted for iced tea (which was not sweet tea for some reason…very unTexan). 

The Alamo Café did not disappoint in the tastiest and the “everything’s bigger in Texas” portions. 

Christoph was shocked that the server brought him a second (unsweetened, perhaps not-so-much-to-his-liking) iced tea before he was even half finished with his first. 

Texas arrival complete…

Texas Buckeye

The Yard

The Whole Enchilada

 

As we ramp up for our trip south we hear that our cats are fitting in well in the country. Tailwheel is trying to ignore them as usual.

I didn’t realize how much students these days use the internet for their school work.

Leon and Jeanne are on vacation this week and they left their daughter Laura home alone. We invited her over for dinner last night. Laura is a senior in high school and she speaks some German. Christoph tested out her basic conversational skills.

Sue made her famous chicken enchiladas and I contributed my kick-arse Texas-style jalapeno pinto beans.

Neighbor Ann came over for dinner, too!