Top Five Friday: Lessons Learned in San Antonio

Here are a few important lessons {in no particular order} that we've learned in the short 18 months we've lived in San Antonio.

1. First and foremost, we'll never be able to go back to regular ole store-bought flour tortillas again. In college, my BFF & roomie Lindsey would buy Mission tortillas from Wal-Mart on the reg and make cheese quesadillas in the microwave. This quickly became a lunch/dinner staple for me, and it is still is over 10 years later. All of that to say, for over a decade now I have been buying flour tortillas in the sandwich bread aisle of whatever grocery store I happened to be shopping in at the time....until San Antonio brought fresh tortillas into my life. OMG, I never knew what I was missing! You can watch them making the tortillas in our HEB, and we always buy the hottest, freshest ones we can get our hands on. Taco Cabana also makes their own fresh flour tortillas...and bonus, you can pick them up in their drive-through line along with their fresh salsas! I seriously don't know what we will do with ourselves when/if we lose access to fresh tortillas. I can't even think about it!

2. Speaking of Taco Cabana, BREAKFAST TACOS! Again, I never knew what I was missing!! I'm totally a sweets person, and prior to living in SA if you had asked me what the perfect breakfast was I would have said chocolate donuts. And the more, the better. It almost pains me to say this b/c I do not want to offend my beloved chocolate donuts, but I think San Antonio has changed my favorite breakfast to breakfast tacos! They are simply amazing!

3. People in Texas call little girls "mama." For example, a mom will say to her daughter: "Here you go, Mama." This totally took me aback when we first moved here, but now I don't think anything of it. But it's still kind of strange to me if I do stop & think about it, ha! We'll be playing at a park and Hadley will say hi to someone, and they'll respond with: "Hi, mama!"

4. Fireworks are INSANE here!!! The road we drive on to get to Shelby's school probably has about 10 huge fireworks stands between our house & the school, it's ridiculous! Growing up, I always remember hearing neighbors shooting off fireworks around the Fourth of July and New Year's, but I've never seen anything like San Antonio! The fireworks in our neighborhood started around 7pm on NYE, and by 10 or 11 it sounded like a war zone at our house!

5. Sound machines are worth their weight in gold. When Shelby was a baby, we quickly learned that a sound machine was a must-have baby item for us. Both girls have one in their bedrooms, and when we travel the sound machines always come with us. But if we didn't really appreciate the sound machines before New Year's Eve, we certainly do now!! All of our neighbors were on Facebook on New Year's Eve complaining about their little ones being woken up multiple times by all of the fireworks; meanwhile, our girls slept like rocks thanks to their sound machines! Seriously worth their weight in gold!!!