I'm thinking that I might have to rename what we do from "camping" to "slightly roughing it." I mean, it's hard to feel like you are truly "camping" if you are enjoying your A/C and using your own bathroom that you don't have to wear flip flops because you don't want to touch the nasty floor that hundreds of others have bathed on...needless to say, we "slightly roughed it" last weekend. Between Hudson's school this semester, some illnesses for Micayla, and my surgery, plus our church commitments, we just haven't had a weekend to get away. So last weekend, since Hudson's final hadn't been published yet, we packed up and headed out for a weekend o' fun.
Typically, we try to camp at a state park because we have a state parks pass, and we love being able to hike, play outside and truly just enjoy nature. But we couldn't definitely plan our camping weekend until a few days before, which meant that most of the state parks that we can drive pretty easily to were already booked (it has been a wonderful Spring, except for the pollen). So, we had heard of Jellystone Campground in Waller (several of our friends had actually been last year), and we knew it had a water slide (which is likely Micayla's love language, if that's possible), and it's only about 1 hour and 15 minutes away, plus they had openings. So, plans were made (reservations completed), and Friday around lunch we took off with the Silver Streak towards Waller. It is a little expensive for a camping weekend in our opinion, but we know we won't be able to camp much (if any) this coming summer due to Hudson having three classes to take (plus still work FT), so we chalked it up to making a great weekend for Micayla (and us). Call it a mini-vacation if you will. Plus the cost includes all the activities (water slide, pool, mini golf, big water slide, fishing, etc.), and Micayla was free! (Yippeee!)
I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking...
Hanging out on the bed (likely watching Tangled).
Daddy cooking breakfast outside for us.
So excited to be in the water park.
Heading out on her maiden slide voyage.
Hudson and Micayla rode a tall tunnel, twisty slide together. Notice Hudson's face.
Notice Hudson's face again...Micayla was as excited as can be...she asked to ride it again (with me the next time).
Coming down the slide--she got turned sideways, I think because she's so light that she caught some air on the turn, (and thought that was so fun!)
Here's the rest of the progression...
I can't count the number of times the child went down this slide. We did have to really work on helping her understand waiting her turn in line (lots of bigger kids in line with her didn't appreciate her cutting).
Our "home" away from home.
My two favorite people!
Trike riding (it was hard in the grass, so Mommy got to pull her everywhere).
Fishing at dusk.
They didn't catch anything, but Micayla believed that she was "big enough" to throw her line in the water by herself (she isn't). So when she couldn't do that, she decided she'd rather not fish. I'm guessing she might be what they call a "fair weather fisherwoman."
Climbing on Yogi the bear and his picnic basket (it was right across from our camper, so we visited often).
Cooking pancakes and maple sausage for breakfast #2....it was good!
We are in the fake smile stage. Enter my sarcastic "yippee" here.
Playing mini golf...Hudson learned by the second swing to not stand as close to her.
If Micayla were an adult, she would call this one "that was a practice swing, Mom."
See the camo/brown bounce house in the back of this picture? They had it blown up Sunday morning and it was a scary looking monster type thing. Anyways, while my child looks happy in this picture, let's just go ahead and say that by hole number 4 (out of 18), all I heard was "Mommy, I want to go jump" every few minutes, despite my telling her that I wasn't going to let her go in it, and that I didn't think she was old enough. (Lots of bigger kids going in it=this mommy isn't going to let little bit get jumped over and on.) This picture was right before a meltdown--isn't it funny how we moms remember all the details of our pictures before and after they are taken? Thankfully it was a short meltdown and we recovered quickly. Said meltdown was likely encouraged by the fact that she didn't want to go to sleep the night before (she would miss out on the fun, she . said!), and waking up at first light (around 6:15). Kudos though to Micayla--we had no accidents all weekend long, which is quite a feat since we've been in the "potty training" stage for 8 months now.
All in all, we had a great weekend away. Micayla has talked about going down the water slide all this week and wants to know when we can go back. Though she's already asked that she bring a friend next time (where did she figure out that was a possibility?). It was a great location for our family--we were home by early afternoon and while Micayla didn't take a nap, she did go to bed early. :) I enjoyed spending a little quiet time under the stars in lawnchairs talking to my hubby--and reading a little bit before bed (a luxury nowadays). While we won't be able to go every weekend (ever) to Jellystone, I can see that we could likely go once a year (probably in the Spring), mainly because of the short drive it takes to "get out of the city." Already looking forward to our next camping trip--whereever that might be!
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