Spring Break in Bandera

This Spring Break Billy and I finally got smart.  Instead of traveling hundreds of miles from home we chose a destination a mere 60 miles away in Bandera.  Like previous years we found a cute cabin to rent with plenty of nature for the kids to explore, but without the hassle of a long road trip.  Instead of feeling like we needed a vacation from our vacation, when we got home we were just regular-tired, not "what-were-we-thinking-we're-never-driving-hours-from-home-with-6-kids-again-tired."  You know?

When we arrived at our cabin, we had a few minutes to entertain ourselves in the yard before it was ready. Adrian kept himself busy by piling rocks inside the Suburban and Rebekah enjoyed soaking up the sunshine.

                                       

Here's Adrian taking a break from the rock-piling.

Joe and Mikea set up a restaurant in the front yard.

Then we took turns rescuing Woody, Elephant, Raccoon, and Spiderman from the trees.

The cabin itself was huge - room for 10 people to sleep! The five oldest kids all shared one room, which was problematic on the first night.  There was quite a bit of silliness to contend with and one child finally had to be removed to an extra bedroom in order to allow the others to fall asleep.

Adrian was thrilled to sleep on the top bunk.  Here he is clapping after I turned on a special night light next to his bed.  Such joy!
                              
The next morning we gathered for breakfast around the massive island in the kitchen and remarkably, not a single child fell off the bar stools the entire trip. (Just me. No, no, I'm only kidding. It was Billy. Ok, just kidding again, neither of us fell.)
                             

Then while Billy and I prepared for our hike down to the Medina River the kids spent some time with blocks.

 More block creations:

To get down to the river we had to descend a set of large, steep, rocky stairs behind the property and then hike across a short meadow.  At first I was just going to let Billy go with the big kids, but I'm stubborn and wanted us all to go together so we decided to just go for it.  Billy carried the equipment down first by himself and then we carefully guided the kids down.  It was a lot tricky but so worth it!

The kids took turns fishing, but no one had any luck.  Oh well.  They still had fun, as you can clearly see!

After we gave up on fishing we hiked a little farther down the river and the kids began chunking rocks into the river.  They could have done that for hours.

After hiking back up the bluff we took a quick drive into Bandera for lunch and then later that evening ate supper outside. 

The plan was to take the kids fishing one more time each by themselves, but we were quickly running out of daylight.  So Mikea got to go by herself with Billy and then the rest went with him in pairs.

These kiddos are growing up too fast.  I demand them to stop it!
                          
 The final activity for our trip was roasting marshmallows and making S'mores.

As usual it was a hot, sticky mess.

Indeed. Mmm-mmm!