We were invited to go to my friend Becca's ranch with her and our friend Marisa last week- just moms and kids. Risky? A little, but we were up for the challenge!
Becca and I set out on the one hour and forty five minute drive, with Marisa just shortly behind us. With the exception of Cash fussing the majority of the time, and feeling like I could possibly fall asleep at the wheel at any moment, the drive was pretty uneventful. I figured that if I just kept eating, I would stay awake, so I successfully stuffed my face with Twizzlers, the boys left over Annie's Bunnies, and anything else I could reach from the bag of snacks in the back seat.
We finally pulled up to The Del Papa Ranch just outside of Kerrville. Contrary to what Marisa's husband, Steve thought, it was not in fact a potato ranch!
As soon as we got in the door, the boys all started exploring and making themselves comfortable, and could not wait another second to get out the door.
We braced ourselves for the 100 degree plus weather as we headed out the door. The first day we mostly lounged around, the boys compared toys they brought, ate snacks (Moms drank, a little), checked out the fish in the water, the boys tried to find every rock on the water line to throw into the water and eventually we pulled out some sprinklers and a baby pool (the water was too low to swim in!)
Eli, Ty and Jonah are all the same age and Owen closely follows. He can hold his own with the older boys and you wouldn't even know that he was younger most of the time. He has his moments of holding back in some situations and even pulling off and playing with Wes, but only when the big boys are not around.
Wes and Savannah are just a few weeks apart.
And Cash was the young'in on the the trip.
The first night there we had a really hard time getting them all to calm down, so we did what any good parent would do, and made them sit in front of the TV with ipads to try and get them to sit still!
We set up this great big palette that night so they could all sleep together, but as the night went on, each little boy found his way into his mom's room.
We were up and at 'em early every morning, especially Wes who decided 5am was the perfect time to get up.
Becca's parents stayed at the guest house across the lake that first night so the next morning Jonah's grandpa, Bobba, came to give us a break from the big kids by taking them fishing and on a hike, but we all ended up going anyway. He was so sweet and so patient with all the little chatterboxes that morning. Even though fishing lasted probably all but 4 minutes, at the end of the day, everyone said it was the best part!
He will not confirm nor deny that he planted items along the hike route, but he had a whole little hike planned out with some really cool things for the boys to 'find' along the way.
Owen had about enough and was hot, thirsty and a tad cranky so we headed back in the truck.
And then hit the water!
Becca had bought a Slip n' Slide and Eli was the only one who would touch it the first half of the day.
And then Becca had to see us all up and she went down! I thought it was awesome, the boys however, were not impressed!
Eventually we got Savannah and Jonah to give it a try.
The second day we set up a little castle tent to try and lure them inside since it was so hot. It worked for a little while.
After dinner we made s'mores after I got Cash down for the night. Ty was a little disappointed they were sticky, and Wes thought he could get away with stealing the extra chocolate..little did he know he left behind some evidence.
With all the talk of different bugs we had seen while we were there, Marisa thought it was a good idea to pull our her phone and show the boys all the poisonous spiders that they may possibly see that could really,
really, hurt them. Look at Eli and Ty's face. It was the perfect night-time talk to cause some serious nightmares, thanks Marisa!
After all the spider talk, we enjoyed the evening on the deck before putting everyone to bed.
For some reason, looking though the itty bitty cracks was way more effective to see the fish than just looking over the rail.
Our last afternoon, we did more of the same....play outside, come inside for a break, back out for some water play, eat (Moms drank, a little) and hang out.
Having a little toothbrush party before bedtime.
Each night after we got the kids down, Becca, Marisa and I went outside, drank, a little, laughed, talked, played games and laughed some more. Marisa even celebrated her first scorpion kill of the trip.
I feel so, so fortunate to have made these great friends. We have kids who love each other and get a long so well, and we just so easily became friends. We live within just a few miles from each other so last minute play dates, stop-ins and afternoon Happy Hours happen all the time.
We joke that we are each others co-workers since our job is our kids. While our husbands are at work working, so are we! We take problems we are having at 'work' and talk to each other about them, we complain to each other about how hard and stressful our jobs can be, we compare notes, and we take company picnics to the park and the pool. This was our first company trip, and I am already looking forward to the next one....maybe while not on the job!
