A welcome mini vaycay - Brenham TX

To put it mildly, my kids have had a shitty summer, a pretty shitty year for that matter with their stepmom fighting breast cancer, and their grandpa almost dying all right before my stuff.
But the summer is supposed to be fun right? We had plans to go on another road trip like last year's one to Atlanta. This time we were going to go to The Oz Museum in Wamego Kansas - we are Wizard of Oz fanatics.  The kids were also going to maybe to a camp or two, theater camp, horse riding, funnish stuff. Of course none of that happened.
The trip for obvious reasons. The camps for financial. They spent a majority of the summer at their dad's house. Which of course isn't terrible, but it's not me. They misssed me, they missed me on top of the worry & fear. They were so good.
They did have one thing to look forward to though - Camp Kessem - a FREE week long sleepaway camp for kids who's parents have cancer, they weren't into it at first but grew to excitement level - welllll that was cancelled 2 days before it was to start. I'm not going to to diss the program, i don't fully understand the red tape circumstances involved, and i hope they can go next year.  Then i'll write good stuff about it. but yeah, that sucked a lot, so much dissapointment, so unstable. so shitty.

But here's where i get to the good stuff, first, it really is good that they got to spend a week with me solid before school, AND it was the "good" feeling week in between chemos.

They needed that. So i decided to take advantage of feeling good (and still having hair so looking good) and take them on a mini trip. My parents encouraged this also, we all felt so sorry for them.
It needed to be close-ish, and not too hard for me, like amusement park, or big city maneuvering - we came up with Brenham Texas, home of Blue Bell Ice Cream!
Just under 2 hours away...check
Small town low key low $ entertainment....check
Reasonable hotels...check

We stayed at a Comfort Suites that the kids literally did cartweels in, cos they could, it was that big. Kitchenette, two rooms with a wall divider, mini sofa bed, 2 flat screen TVs, free breakfast with Texas shaped Waffles (is there any other state that can do that???)
I searched the internet and this is what we did over 3 days & 2 nights

The Jersey Barnyard
Also known as Frerichs Dairy, this is actually in nearby La Grange. Kids met Cisco the donkey, fed chickens, roosters, rabits & calves, went on a hayride & milked a cow. Family owned, unbelieveably nice people, we were the only ones there.

we called this chicken Bellina after Dorothy's pet in Wizard of Oz

Cisco

Blue Bell Creameries
We went early for the first tour, saw the factory how the ice cream is made & packaged and you get free ice cream at the end!

Monastery of St. Clare Miniature Horse Farm
Miniature horses are cute. Kids love them. beautiful setting. happy kids

Chappell Hill Lavender Farm
This place was so gorgeous and the kids loved picking their own lavender. It was slim pickins due the Lavender festival being the weekend before but we found some

We ate at Must Be Heaven - which has an old timey ice cream parlour and walked around the cute old downtown, there's also a Starbucks & a bunch of other good & easy places to eat.

So really what this post is is about is a reminder that life does not stop, you can still do fun stuff while undergoing treatment (if you actually can physically, i know it's different for everyone)

AND take advantage of the times you feel good, between the chemos. Do something you want to do! 

PS. I also have been working while I feel good, showing houses, held an Open House, studying the MLS, blogging on http://rocknrealty.net/  it helps me to feel real and more like ME.