January at the Lake
We found a new favorite hangout, went on hikes, tested out our wetsuits, roasted marshmallows, visited Brenham, stopped at a forgotten Texas town and flew the drone around. This was January at the lake...
Flat Creek Winery
Our house manager recommended this place to us as it's close to our neighborhood, and a big hit with others in the community. Having been to Napa multiple times between the two of us, we were skeptical about how great the wine would be. Fortunately we were very pleasantly surprised, and even ended up buying six bottles to take home.
The atmosphere is great and we were able to enjoy a picnic from the bistro while we sat outside and listened to live music.
the girls were ecstatic to find out that there was a "wine dog". Bentley is the owners little corgi, and basically roams the grounds all day. The girls spent their whole afternoon following Bentley around.
Jordan even got some great drone footage of the property. I can't wait to see what it looks like with full vines!
Tubing in January
As many of you may know, sometimes its very warm in January in Texas. Unfortunately, on this particular weekend this was not the case. In fact, the weather reports seemed to keep reporting colder and colder temperatures as we got closer to the weekend.
Nevertheless the kids
really
wanted to go tubing, and we had these brand new wetsuits to try out.
As we walked down the pier everyone at the marina gave us odd looks - they couldn't believe we were planning on getting in.
For some reason Holden thought I was going to throw him in, which is why he's holding onto me with his legs in a death grip.
Ultimately, Holden and I didn't get in. But Ella and Isla decided to
literally
"
brave the frigid waters".
Ella did much better, and I think would have stayed in longer if not for Isla. As soon as she got a little taste of the water she was done. The boat ride didn't last much longer after that since the girls were wet and being on the boat was the worst place to try and get warm.
Instead we headed to the hottub and warmed up there.
The day ended with a beautiful sunset over the
very
cold lake.
A Morning Hike
The next morning we woke up and headed out on a hike before heading back toward Katy.
Hiking is tough work, especially for our little princess. There were a lot of falls and cuts and scrapes to examine...
Holden didn't sleep well the night before and was over the girls antics in the car. He slept almost the whole way to our first stop; Brenham, Texas.
Brenham
We started at Must be Heaven, an old-school diner known for their pies.
of course we had to try some of their dessert... after all, this is the home of Blue Bell!
It did not disappoint...
We spent about another hour walking around the town and stopping in stores along the way.
Winkelmann, Texas
In between Brenham and Katy is what appears to be an abandoned ghost town off the side of the highway. The sign alerts you that this was once Winkelmann, Texas. However, we did some digging and found the real story behind Winkelmann - read more by clicking
.
Whatever the history, it was still a spooky place to walk around in. I didn't want to spend too much time there and shot some photos as quickly as I could.
And thats a snippet of the lake in January... More adventures to come!