These Dean Days: Labor Day

We said “goodbye to summer” (let’s face it, this Houston heat isn’t going away any time soon!) with a little staycation to the Woodlands Resort. We changed our plans about 5 times but I’m glad we settled on this one – it was a great few days that didn’t involve a lot of driving and still felt like an escape.

Olivia and I decided we would spend the whole day Friday at the resort for a mommy-daughter day. And, she was so excited about it that she woke up at 4 a.m. and basically couldn’t fall back asleep. So by the time we left our house at 10:00 a.m., she had already been awake 6 hours and snoozed most of the way to the Woodlands.

But as soon as we arrived, she perked right up.

We put our bags in our room and check out our fun view of the pool.

And then we headed straight down for some swimming.

And a pool-side lunch. Grilled cheese for Olivia and a berry pina colada for mamma. Win. Win.

We had the slide all to ourselves basically, so of course we went down it about 1 million times.

And Olivia had very specific opinions of how I should act while she was on the slide. When she got to the top of the slide, after she put on her goggles, she would give me a thumbs up, which meant I was then to say "Ready, Steady, GO!" to give her the go-ahead to go down the slide. Once she made it to the bottom, I had to cheer for her until she reached the side. The first time I did this, I cheered "Go Olivia! Yay! Go! Go!" She got to the side, cocked her head and said "Mom!!! Not like that. Just say 'Go Olivia go! 'Go Olivia go!" So, the next time I did that. But apparently not loud enough. So, on the 3rd time, I finally got it right and as she made it to the side she looked at me and said "I'm like Katie Ledecky, huh mom?" What?!! No kid. You did make it to the side with some combination of "big arms" that we have spent a small fortune on swim lessons for you to learn, doggy paddle, and I think maybe the general movement of the pool, but its a far cry from Katie Ledecky. But, given my previous chastising regarding the proper way to cheer her on, I decided to just say "Oh yes. For sure!" and leave it at that.

I tried to convince Olivia to have a little rest time on the pool chairs and even demonstrated how comfy they were. But she refused.

So we headed upstairs to let the "future Olympian" rest a bit. Matt joined us for the end of naptime.

And once we were all rested, we went back to the pool. They had a DJ with a “kids dance competition” – we had to practically bribe her to even try it out and then she loved it so much that we could barely drag her away. She got picked as a “finalist” and got to go on stage. (don't get too excited, basically every kid got a chance as a finalist).

As you can see, she really has perfected one move (jumping) and she sticks to it!

And then the "audience" picked the winner. Unfortunately, Olivia was not the winner. However, that did not stop her from following the winner over to the treasure chest and picking out a treat.

After dinner, we headed over to the firepit for some s'mores.

And we confirmed she still doesn't like s'mores (I know! We can't understand it either!) - just the marshmallows!

And then Olivia noticed a little 11 year old girl swimming around the pool with a mermaid tail on, and she went into crazy stalker mode. She followed this girl around for about an hour. And finally, all the work paid off because the sweet owner of said tail let Olivia try it on. Talk about a happy little girl!!

And then she settled in with her popcorn to watch the "dive in movie." We lasted through about half before she looked at us and said "Bed! Bed! Bed!"

The next morning she was up and at 'em by 6 am, so we went and got breakfast and explored the Woodlands Farmers Market.

Then we went back to the pool and Olivia made friends with another little girl who shared her love of the slide, the big girl with the mermaid tail, and floating princess dolls.

Since we were in the Woodlands, we invited Casey and Annabelle to come and swim with us and have lunch.

And after naptime, we headed to their house for Annabelle's 4th Birthday party. They had the Fun Bus come and all the kids loved it!

Also throwing all the balloons around the house provided about an hour of entertainment!

We stayed late celebrating Annabelle, so we had breakfast in bed on our last morning there!

Once we were back home on Monday, Olivia woke up from nap and was dying to wash mine and Matt's car (the latest game she learned from her "husband" Harris John McGuire - apparently after our Florida trip Harris just announced to Jennie that he and Olivia got married while we were in Florida. No big deal. I later asked Olivia about this and she just got a huge smile on her face. So now she constantly refers to their wedding and the next time they saw each other it took about 10 minutes before they were "playing married!"). Anyways, she loved "washing" the cars and so did Matt and I. We sat outside in our lawn chairs and had a drink!