TEXAS ROAD TRIP [MARCH 2023]
Usually during Spring Break my mom flies out to Colorado because her Spring Break (she’s a teacher in Texas) is always different than ours. However, since we are homeschooling this year, we decided to pack up and road trip to Texas to the family farm for the week!
We had the BEST BEST BEST week with my family and I just love that the boys got to play on the farm that I grew up on.
I grew up in East Texas about 5 miles outside of Palestine on a 100 acre farm. My dad and grandfather built this log cabin in the 70s. My family moved there in 1992. I didn’t always appreciate growing up out in the country, but it’s so nice to be able to have a place like this to come home to with my boys.
After 2 days of driving, we were all very happy to pull up to this little cabin in the woods! We typically drive when we go to Texas, so we’ve learned over the years what works and what doesn’t. I’m planning a separate post all about road trips with littles soon, but here’s a little glimpse of what that looks like!
After 15 hours (split between two days) we finally made it to Mama J’s house and after hot showers and a good night of sleep, we were excited to enjoy some warm weather and play outside while we waited for my brother’s family to get there.
We were so excited that my brother’s family could come spend a few days with us at the farm. Korben and my niece Abbey are 6 weeks apart in age and I couldn’t wait to watch them play together and of course Jack was their ring leader!
Since we were going to be there for the whole week, Abbey stayed a few extra days with us at the farm. My brother and sister-in-law were moving into a new house that week, so it worked out perfectly!
On Monday we took the kids to a trampoline place and they had the best time running, jumping, flipping, tumbling and just being silly! From the pictures it looks like they just enjoyed the foam pit, but they loved bouncing all around everywhere.
The next day we just let the kids run and play and be kids at the farm! They loved going on “bear” hunts with Mama J with their cowboy hats and boots! I got to live out all of my girl-aunt dreams by painting Abbey’s nails 💗 and they finished off the day with a big movie palette on the floor.
After we took Abbey back to her mom and dad, we got to celebrate Jack turning 7! We celebrated with donuts from my favorite mom and pop donut shop, opened presents, went out to dinner and topped the evening off visiting the baby chicks at the farm store. I’m honestly surprised that Jack didn’t sneak a chick into his pocket. He was obsessed with them!
Did you know that since Covid, lots of restaurants have stopped singing happy birthday?! When we asked him where he wanted to eat dinner for his birthday, his response was, “somewhere that sings happy birthday!” I called 4 or 5 different restaurants before I found one.
Our last day was filled with the kids playing and we grabbed lunch at one of our favorite lunch diners. What’s funny is while we were waiting for our food, I opened the TimeHop app on my phone and realized we had been there 3 years to the day before.
Except on that day 3 years ago, we were cutting our trip to Texas short because the world was shutting down from the pandemic. It’s interesting to see how the pandemic spread because Texas didn’t have all of the restrictions and lock downs until about a week and a half after we did in Colorado. By the time we got back home to Colorado Springs, the world was shut down, the grocery shelves were empty, schools were closed and the way people do life had truly changed forever.
It was really just nice to be able to take the trip to Texas. Even though the drive is long, it was so worth it to watch my boys play on the farm. It was also nice to not cram a bunch of “stuff” or check the off the list of people we “needed” to see. We spent time with our family and just enjoyed our time together and it was perfect!
