Thursday, June 22, 2006

The Republic of Texas...

We promised the boys that we would take them to see the Alamo on our trip to San Antonio. They were so excited to see the actual spot where the 200 brave Texans battled Santa Anna's huge army of 6000 and held them back for 12 long days. Their only point of reference was the old ALAMO movie made back in the 60's starring John Wayne. They've watched this movie numerous times..totally riveted..despite the fact that it is a very long movie.

On the car ride over:

Gus: Are we going to see lots of blood?

Chris: No Gus. They've cleaned it all up.

Jack: I want to see all the dead bodies.

Chris: Nope. Those are all buried and gone.

Jack and Gus seemed disappointed. I asked Chris to explain to the boys that what they were about to see would be a very small part of the original Alamo. I knew they were expecting to see a huge fort in the middle of a desert, when in actuality, the city of San Antonio surrounds the mission and makes it look, well, rather small in comparison to the modern day sky scrapers and hotels. But surprisingly, the boys didn't seem to notice, they did, in fact become enamored with a huge diorama of the original fort complete with miniature soldiers, horses, cannons and guns. Oh, I tell you, it was boy heaven indeed! They must have studied the diorama for 10 minutes asking questions about Jim Bowie, bowie knives and the other heroes who died in the siege.

Afterwards we visited the gift shop and Gus eyed a pretty cool box of plastic Alamo figurines complete with its very own Alamo...a box of 101 pieces. The boys decided to use their allowance and buy the set. Not only did the visit to the Alamo make a big impression, they continued their own battle at grandma house using their new Alamo set....only in their version of the battle...

the TEXANS won.

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