Slip Slidin' Away

I have been gone for a few days to Flint, TX with my mom and my son. What is in Flint,TX? I'm glad you asked. And I certainly don't blame you for asking since it isn't even on any Texas road maps. But, what lies in the heart of Flint, TX is a wonderful little time share resort called The Villages. My parents are part of the time share universe and as such, they get to stay at the resorts all over Texas and I get to reap the benefits of that. So on my hiatus from school, work and anything else but motherhood, we decided to get int he car and take a little trip. The Villages is actually very nice. It has a great swimming pool for kids and also an indoor water park that Luke went nuts over. The outdoor pool was really shallow and full of fun sprays and fountains.

By the way, he is NOT drowning in the picture on the right. This is my boy, swimming by himself.

They made everyone in the child section wear life jackets and we were not sure how that would go over with Luke. He has a few life saving devices at home that he REFUSES to wear. But I guess if you dangle a big enough carrot...

There were the standard sprays and pouring buckets and water guns for the kids to play with along with some tunnels, stairs and rope bridges.

But the most fun was the water slides. There were three for the children blue (the long one), orange (the fast one) and green (the open one). We were told right off the bat that the parents could not ride the slides with the children so Luke would have to brave it alone. We sent him down that first slide and watched him go round and round, smiling the whole way, and ending at the bottom ready to do it again. It was really great to see him do these amazingly brave things and to get to see the sheer joy on his face at being able to do "big boy" things all by himself.

By the end of the day he was laying on his stomach headed down the water slide, feet first, and looking up at me and saying "bye bye" as he went down the slide. I am so glad that we went. I sense that there will be many more trips in the future.