I figured I’d better get this post up before all my thoughts were lost. And I’ll warn you, this is likely to be an extremely long post. It’s been exactly a month since we travelled to Wimberley and stayed with my family at the 7A Resort. It’s not a resort in what I consider the normal sense of the word, but it was a clean, dry place to stay that had air conditioning and running water, located near on the Blanco river. It has some other things to do there, like swim in the pool and explore the grounds of Pioneer Town.
We had two cabins. We stayed all week (minus one night) and so did Jimmy Jane and June. Together, we occupied one cabin. Nana and Papa Jim stayed in the other cabin. Uncle Sean and Bella stayed a couple of nights and then went home, freeing up space for Aunt Heather, John Wellman, and Baby Jude (eventually Uncle Jeff came too) to stay for the remainder of week.
The absolute best part about the trip was the ABSENCE of mosquitoes. I was fully prepared with lots of OFF, but we never even got it out. When we left Houston, we’d been in the midst of the worst mosquito season I’d seen in a long while. It was so bad you could get bit just getting in and out of the car in mid-day. So, to not have to worry about it was fabulous! This resulted in lots and lots of time outside, unless the heat required a brief respite in the AC.
Sunday evening found us settled in and off in search of bugs. Sean had found a bug house at the dollar store and this became a grand pastime for the week, outside of water activities. Jane lead the group off that evening in search of good bugs. They saw lots of grasshoppers and butterflies. But the biggest bug we saw all week was this one.
No kidding, this lady (why do I always think of them as girls?) was about 4 inches tip to tip. She had built her web on the front side of the resort sign that the kids are looking under in the photo above. She wasn’t the easiest to photograph as the “front” side of her web was facing the sign. She so reminded me of the large photo I have on my wall that Dad took of the Goliad spider. Needless to say, she wasn’t “collected” for viewing.
On Monday morning, after a lazy breakfast we got up and went to the “reever” as JHP called it, complete with scrunched up nose. Aside from just hanging out in the water, we had some kayaks to enjoy. John was definitely timid at first. He wore a life jacket that we’d purchased. But alone, it didn’t give him enough stability to make him comfortable in the water. We’d also brought some Floaties and those made all the difference. They made him stable and allowed him to sit mostly unassisted on the rocks in the river. By the end of the morning, he was comfortable enough to paddle short distances from person to person.
Monday’s evening entertainment involved lots and lots of bubbles. The kids all enjoyed using the variety of bubble wands that I’d brought. Even the adults got into the act, allowing the kids to pop bubbles.
On Tuesday, the three of us took a little road trip. While planning for our trip, it occurred to us that John’s cousin lived an easy day trip’s distance from Wimberley. So, I got to meet Mary-Anne for the first time. She’s a blogger, too. So it was so nice to hear her voice and meet her, although it seemed as if I’d already knew her “voice” from her writing. She’s married to Jeremiah, who is currently serving our country overseas. They have one little boy named Ethan who just turned two last week, and a little girl due to arrive any day now. I always find it interesting to see how John interacts with kids his own age or younger. They got along pretty well, although I’m not sure John liked Ethan snagging some of his snacks without asking.
But by the end of our time together, John was ready to say goodbye and gave Ethan a big hug, which unfortunately ended up on the ground with a bumped head for John. We are all looking forward to seeing them again soon and meeting the newest member of the family.
The cabin had two rooms and a bathroom. We slept in the back room that had a double bed and a twin. Jane had brought John a little cot to sleep on, but we opted to try him in the twin bed all by himself. He only fell out of the bed once all week, which I thought was pretty good. He was the first to go to bed each night and actually did really well about staying in his bed. Of course, we threatened him with a spanking should he had gotten out. And it worked. (Too bad it didn’t continue to work once we converted him bed here at home, but you’ve already heard that story…) His bed was right near the window and although he didn’t get out of bed, he did make use of the window to keep an eye on us. On this night he was caught on camera resting his head on the window sill. And then he caught me taking his picture. The other picture I should have caught was John standing up in the window sill. We didn’t tolerate this (for safety reasons), but that didn’t stop him from trying it on numerous occasions.
The Wellmans showed up on Wednesday. And of course, my brother couldn’t keep his hands off Baby Jude. Such a big guy with a squishy heart for babies! Of course, I could resist taking pictures of Jude. I admit, I have a problem. Can’t. Stop. Taking. Photos. Of. Babies.
I’m not sure what we did Wednesday morning. I don’t think we went to the river. I do know that it rained on Wednesday afternoon. So Jimmy, Jane and I ran into San Marcos to visit the outlet malls. While we were gone, the group went to the pool, where John had tons of fun. We’d brought some water guns and he learned exactly how to use them. And during this pool visit that John became fearless in the water. he was routinely jumping from the side of the pool into Daddy’s arms. It was only on inspection of my mom’s photos did I discover he had NO flotation device whatsoever! Thankfully, John hasn’t decided that he doesn’t need some kind of flotation device.
Well, I’ve made it through Wednesday evening. I think I’ll save the rest of our trip for tomorrow’s post!
-EBP-
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