I’m at a good age when it comes to family vacations.

We just returned from the Texas hill country where we floated the river, climbed Enchanted Rock, spent one day at a huge water park and another at an outlet mall.

At the river, all the young women were so worried about how they looked in their swimsuits, they could hardly have fun.  All the moms with little children were constantly worrying about their kids tumping over and whether or not they had on enough sunscreen.  All the moms with jr. high kids were soaking wet from being squirted with water guns.

My teenagers didn’t want to float with us because, well, it’s embarrassing for anybody to know that they actually do fun stuff with the FAMILY.  Horrors.

My husband and I just floated.  It was wonderful.

Everybody at Enchanted Rock was in family units, so it was okay for the teenagers to be seen with us.  We didn’t have to carry anybody when they got tired, and they didn’t complain when the only thing we had to drink was water.  When they got hungry, we told them if they could wait an hour, we would eat in Fredericksburg.  They were old enough to know that was a good thing.

We somehow spent seven hours at the outlet mall.  It was only the teenage girls and me, and we all knew this was the only way something like this could have happened.  Guys cannot and will not tolerate more than an hour of such tomfoolery.

The girls were old enough to where we could split up meet at designated spots throughout the day.  There was nobody tugging at my shorts saying, “Can I have this?” or “Can I have that?”  When I wanted to look at bedspreads or placemats, nobody rolled their eyes and said, “Not AGAIN!”

At the water park, we went back into the “I can’t be seen with you” mode, so as soon as we parked our towels at a picnic table, the kids pretended like they didn’t know us. 

In case you don’t know, the Number One Reason for teenage girls to go to the water park is not to experience the thrill of the uphill water roller coaster.  No, sirree.

It is to try to find hot guys.

We have an exchange student living with us right now, and I loved hearing the girls trying to explain that a “hot” guy was someone who was “cool”.

I sat under a tree and read a book.  When I got hot, I floated around in the Lazy River until I got wrinkled.  A child would never have allowed these two activities to take place.  First of all, they can’t think of why anyone would read a book on vacation.  How boring.

Next, they can’t think of anything worse that just floating on the Lazy River.  It’s almost as boring as reading a book.

I was waiting in line to get some Dippin’ Dots, which is ice cream frozen in little round ball thingies.  The mom in front of me order two cups, one for each of the toddlers she had wrapped around her legs.  When she handed the first cup to one of them, the other one threw himself on the ground and started crying.

“He always gets to go first!” he wailed.

I went back to my spot under the tree and thanked my lucky stars that I didn’t have a five-year-old anymore.