This last weekend though, Blake went out of town hunting with all the Men-folk of the family, so the kids and I decided that we would take Mom and go out to the River House and enjoy a little time of relaxation of our own. Little did I know that this would be the ABSOLUTE BEST decision that I have made in a long time regarding how to spend our time!!!
Shortly after arriving on Friday and getting all our stuff into the house and generally arranged, we walked down to the river. The grass was knee-high (elbow/shoulder high if you are 2 1/2), so there was a bit of complaining about sticker-burrs, but the kids and dogs were all troopers and made it all the way down. Once there, the dogs swam, and the kids threw rocks - because why not?
We actually stayed down at the river for nearly an hour, and finally decided we needed to head back so that we didn't have to find the overgrown trail in the dark. While I made dinner, Mom and the boys built us a fire in the fireplace. No, it wasn't really all that cold (although it did get into the higher 40s overnight), but I had promised Marshmallow roasting if they did a good job on eating their dinners.
It was their first time to ever roast marshmallows, and they thought that it was a pretty fun thing to do - I mean who doesn't like playing with fire?
Jake's Marshmallow
Travis's Marshmallow
After roasting them, they actually decided that they didn't like roasted marshmallows, and that they preferred them not squishy. Maybe next time I will have to introduce them to frozen marshmallows...
The boys even had a room all to themselves while we were out there - oh the wonderfulness of having a decently sized house to get away and play at. (Thanks Grandmommy and Grandaddy - the house you built is perfect) They were so excited to get to have a slumber party together, and they did quite a bit of playing in their room before it was actually time to go to bed.
Quite a bit of playing also of course was done in the living room - mainly Legos, tractors, and Go Fishing (thanks Aunt Laura), since those are the toys that the boys deemed necessary to come out to the river with us. Sorry to the next visitors if you find any Lego pieces - just stick them on the mantle and we'll retrieve them.
It took about 30 minutes after sticking them in bed before they quit goofing off and actually went to sleep, but 30 minutes isn't too long, they really weren't too loud, and I had wine - so I decided I really didn't care that they weren't doing exactly what I told them to do.
Jake woke up a couple times in the night with a foot that fell asleep and freaked him out, but other than that they slept pretty well, and got up at the mostly reasonable weekend hour of 7am. (I say mostly reasonable because my boys aren't supposed to get up before 7:30, but at home they have blackout curtains, and there are definitely not blackouts at the River House).
After being up for a while, getting enough coffee and breakfast, we headed back outside - because what is the point of having all this outdoor space if you aren't going to use it!! So we spent some time blowing bubbles, and Grandma got the tractor out and mowed so that we wouldn't have quite as many instances of "Mama - Sticker" when we headed back down to the river.
When we headed back down, we only took 2 dogs - Miss Molly was a little tired from the day before, but she still protested being left behind, sorry girl, I want you as healthy as I can keep you and your hips would not have liked a second trip all the way down to the water.
One dog short though did not stop the boys from having just as much fun. The above is a picture of them running back and forth from the ledge (where they could grab decent sized rocks) to the water's edge to throw the rocks for the dogs, or maybe just for splashing and the dogs decided to chase anyway. Either way, it was a bit difficult to tear them away when everyone started getting hungry.
Eventually we made our way back up to the house for lunch, and then we went around to make sure all the bird feeders had food in them - there are 6!! So the boys got to do lots of seed filling which they of course loved.
When it rolled back around to nap time/quiet time, we packed up and headed back home. And you would think that my boys would have been so exhausted that they would have fallen asleep by the end of the couple miles long driveway... nope definitely not. And they weren't asleep when we hit the turnoff from 281 to 71, and they still weren't asleep when we hit Spicewood!! Jake finally fell asleep about 15 - 20 minutes from home, and Travis not until about 8 minutes from home. And of course that was all the nap that they got. Oh well.
My favorite things about taking the boys out to the River you ask?? Well, even though we missed nap time 2 days in a row to be able to drive out and back...
- All the screams were happy screams
- The boys were mostly polite to each other and polite to their Mama and Grandma
- There was NO TV for over 24 hours
- Everyone slept REALLY well when we got home
So, I am thinking that this is something that we can do again some time - particularly at a time when Mama again gets to her wit's end with the way that the small people are acting, as had probably recently happened which spurred me to just want to get away for a bit.
