DoSeum, The Grotto, and Tacos!

The DoSeum is San Antonio’s children’s museum. We had so much fun and stayed way longer than we had anticipated. The big girls loved the spy exhibit and the little ones loved the play town. 

The Grotto to is a weird little space near Downtown but Dave had to see it.

And we found tacos everyone loved at The Original Donut Shop. We never found out if their donuts were any good but man, their tacos were delightful. Our favorites were the bacon & egg and the bean & cheese.

Birdie and her bacon taco which consists only of a homemade flour tortilla and 3 strips of bacon. Ha!

San Antonio Riverwalk

We visited the Riverwalk during the day …

…and at night to see all of the Christmas lights.

 

McNay Art Museum

With our passes we were able to visit various museums for free or reduced prices. 

The McNay Art Museum had art from well-known artists like Monet, Van Gogh, Matisse, and O’Keefe. It’s the first time most of my kids have seen “real” art. The museum is housed in a gorgeous Spanish Colonial-Revival mansion built in the 1920s for a woman who enjoyed collecting art. 

Service Opportunities

I was pleased to find a few options for service in San Antonio that young kids could participate in. We volunteered two different times for the San Antonio Food Bank - once at their urban farm in the SW part of town, and once at their farm at the San Juan Mission. Both times we got to spread mulch since it was nearing winter and not planting season. The kids did awesome and really felt like they were making a difference because we could see our progress as we went along.

The other opportunity we found was stuffing Christmas bags for refugee teen girls through the Center for Refugee Services. We made up 100 bags to deliver and also got a tour of their offices where they teach English to Afghan families, distribute needed items, and provide other services. 

San Antonio Missions

There are several Spanish missions in San Antonio with a biking path that connects them all. Next time we’re in SA I’d love to do the bike path, but this time we just drove to see 3 of the 4 (that last one is going to haunt me!) and the Alamo. Dave has told the kids about visiting the Alamo when he was a kid living in Texas and how big a deal it was in their state history. We also saw the Espada Aqueduct, which is an aqueduct built for one of the missions. 

Mission San Jose is where the visitor center is and still has a church that is in use today. It is well restored so you can really get an idea of how life might have been for those who lived there.

Mission Espada also has a church on site, though the rest of the buildings/walls are mostly in ruins.

This is the top of the Espada Aqueduct. Just to the left of this is a creek that the aqueduct crosses over bridge-style. It’s very European-looking.

This is the Mission San Juan. The church here was very narrow but probably my favorite inside. The grounds made for a great photo shoot. There is also a working farm here utilized by the San Antonio Food Bank.

Dave finally returned to the Alamo. I didn’t realize until we were there that the Alamo was actually quite destroyed before the Texans used it as a shelter to (unsuccessfully) fend off the Spanish.