End of summer.

This is a bit of a catch up post. We've had a very busy end of summer, and i've been a bit overwhelmed with harvest and preservation of our garden produce. We've also been trying to get in as much summer fun as possible, which means we have been spending our days outside.


A couple weeks ago, Kenan had an opportunity for free barn wood. So he spend the weekend, tearing down the old barn and collecting all the usable wood. The wood will come in very handy for various building projects, and it has a wonderful rustic look. The house where the barn was located is right on the Little River and so one afternoon i came out with the kids so they could play in the river while Kenan worked on the barn. It was a beautiful spot, and the river is shallow and clear all the way across.

Both kids had a blast swimming and collecting rocks and water snails. The woman who owned the property was extremely nice, and has invited us back several times to picnic and play.

Almost every summer we spend a day at Fairy Stone State Park. It's usually one of the last things we do before back to school. This year, i started looking around for some thing different to do. We love state parks, museums or just something fun and new. i came across info for Lake Ridge Resort. This used to be called RJ Ranch. It is surprisingly close by, only about 15 miles from our house.

Lake Ridge Resort, is a campground/RV park with cabin rentals and sites for tent or RV camping. They also offer day passes for those who wish to come and play, but not stay all night. They have two huge pools. The kid's pool is 3' at it's deepest, and the other pool is 5' at it's deepest. The park also has two 400' water slides, miniature golf, paddle boat rides, arcade, playground and catch and release fishing. The day pass rates are $12 per person for an All Day Pass which allows you to participate in all the activities they offer. They also have a swimming pass for $5 per person, which gives you access to the pools for an entire day.

My boy was thrilled with the miniature golf because he's never played before, but my girl got bored after the second hole. She helped me through the rest of the game by picking up my ball and putting it in the hole for me. ha ha. It was a very simple, and old putt putt course. Nothing too spectacular, but the kids still had fun.

We also went out on the paddle boats. The pond is small, and it was really hot so we didn't spend a lot of time on them. It was still kind of fun. There were tons of dragonflies and we watched them skim across the water.

The highlight of Lake Ridge resort is definitely the water slides. When we were there only one slide was working, but we went down it probably 50 times. It was so much fun. The park was not busy at all. For a while we were the only ones on the slide, so we could go down it over and over as much as we wanted. Even when there were a few other people on it, the lined moved extremely quickly, and we never waited more than a minute or two to ride.

My girl was afraid of the water slide at first, and i rode down it with her several times before she was brave enough to try it on her own. i actually enjoyed the water slide much more than i expected too. It was really fun!!! The walk back up was quite a workout on the legs too. :)
The pools and the water slide definitely made our visit worth while. The other attractions were okay, but nothing special. The arcade would have been nice for older kids, but most of the games were too old my two. They also had pool tables, ping pong, and one skee ball machine. There was a nice little restaurant/snack bar and gift shop, and the staff was all very friendly and helpful. It was really a neat little place.
The cost of the 'all access' pass was a little high for us to visit often, but it made for a very nice special day out before school. We'll definitely come back next summer.