Red Mango & the Zoo

I went to bed early the night of the 3rd. Jorge and his buddy chilled out on the porch. We were texting back and forth and he kept trying to convince me to go outside, but I was so tired I crashed out on the round sofa with Ruffles, heh. The girls had already gone to bed, but he had the boys get ready for bed. He’s the best !

I woke up completely refreshed, whipped up some banana pancakes (and hazelnut coffee for myself), and fed the kiddos. I paid bills online and then we got ready to go to the Red Mango grand-opening.

We found a parking spot right in front, which was awesome since the place was beyond packed. They gave the kids balloons, we all got free small yogurts of our choice with 2 toppings (was NOT expecting that!), free tiny cupcakes from CC’s Sweets & Tweets next door and I got a t-shirt :D.

We headed back home and the boys stayed with Mom while the girls and I went to the library for a bit. They found a few books at the book sale and we came home. I made lunch for us (deviled eggs and macaroni, their choice, heh) and we ate on the porch and then Jaylen, Aly and I played hotscotch :).

Jorge got home and we ordered Domino’s. We started noticing that it felt really hot in the house. The thermostat said it was 85 degrees . I’d noticed since much earlier, but I figured it was on account of me running around sweeping and doing laundry. We called the landlord and she said she’d try to get ahold of the air-condition guy but we never got a call back. Jorge said, “Screw it! Let’s get a hotel!” So we searched around. We wanted to stay at the beach with all the kiddos, but the Comfort Inn–where we’d stayed the week before–was sold out. Actually, every hotel we tried on South Padre Island was sold out. Stupid Spring Break!

We had planned a trip to the zoo with the kids for the next day, so we figured we’d just stay in Brownsville. We were lucky to get a hotel there; we got the last 2 rooms!

We packed quickly (yet efficiently; of course I made a list and checked it twice) and we left on our little road trip. The kids were amazingly well behaved. I think Mom was the one complaining the most, heh. Jorge and I shared MixOreds and chatted all the way. I love our little trips .

We got to the hotel and the kids all settled in and before long we were all in bed and ready to sleep.

We got up and had breakfast at McDonald’s. Not our first choice, but we’d passed all the restaurants and were almost to the zoo LOL. The kids had fun anyway. They had their breakfasts and then played in the park thing for a bit.

And then we got to the zoo. I was a little sad that the zoo looked less than…appealing. A lot of the animals were gone and it just looked messy and unkempt :(. I didn’t visit it at all last year and it looked worse than in 2010.

But the kids had fun :). Here’s a few pics:

My babe took this one :)!

The kids were tired by the end and so were we LOL. We had a long drive, but we stopped for snacks and listened to music on the way. We had dinner at Denny’s and then we came home and relaxed :). It was a great weekend!