All the details about our Texas Treehouse trip!

Three years ago, I took Ella on her first solo trip and we spent 2.5 days in New York City.

Now, three years later, Ani is in 6th grade and we’ve been talking about her one-on-one trip for a solid year.

She was less interested in a big city trip this time around and wanted something more outdoorsy and laid back.

We tossed around the idea of glamping and looked at lots of options but nothing seemed quite right.

Then toward the end of summer, we decided to look on Airbnb for treehouses and we found this darling little A-Frame in Texas (appropriate since Ani is my Texas baby – each of my four girls were born in different states).

There were direct flights to Houston and I had Southwest credit to use up and suddenly everything fell quickly into place.

At the beginning of October, the big moment arrived and we packed our suitcases, plus plenty of books, games, and puzzles, and caught our flight to Houston.

Once we arrived, we picked up our rental car and drove a couple of hours to Kirbyville where the treehouse was located on an 80 acre property.

We were instantly charmed when we arrived on the property and the little treehouse was just as good as it looked in the photos. It had a little loft for Ani and a bed for me in the main area.

We flew in on Monday evening and stayed all day Tuesday and Wednesday and then drove back to Houston on Thursday morning to catch our flight home to Utah.

Here’s what our agenda looked like:

Monday:

We stopped at an H-E-B (my favorite Texas grocery store that I miss all the time!) and stocked up with supplies for the week. We planned to go out to dinner while we were there, so we got breakfast and lunch foods plus plenty of snacks, plus some sushi for the road.

On our drive, we started listening to The Bletchley Riddle which we both were VERY into it.

When we arrived at the property, we unpacked all our belongings and explored for a bit (Ani called my parents and gave them a FaceTime tour of the whole place). After our road trip sushi, we weren’t really feeling like we needed a full dinner so we had a few snacks, changed into our pajamas, worked on a puzzle for a bit while listening to more of The Bletchley Riddle and then settled in to watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Tuesday:

We were up bright and early, thanks to all the sunshine, had some breakfast on the deck and then played a dice game together. Then before the day got too hot (it was in the low 90s during the day all through our trip), we changed, stopped to visit the animals and then headed out to explore the trails in the woods on the property. We especially loved the bridges – suspension and rock bridges – scattered along the trail and then eventually returned to our cabin.

We changed into our swimsuits and went out to the pond where we took the peddle boat out for a spin and then jumped off the dock to swim in the pond (which wasn’t very deep and also fairly scummy).

I settled into a hammock on the deck while Ani swam for a bit longer and then we went back to the cabin where I took a shower and Ani took advantage of the outdoor shower.

When she came back in, we finished the puzzle while listening to more of our audiobook together. We played a few rounds of Set and then watched trailers for various movie options for that night. I had a little work to do, so I spent about an hour working while Ani finished the puzzle and listened to her audiobook and then we headed into town to visit the tiny little local library.

We both found favorite books to read (I read a few chapters of Can You Keep a Secret? which I’ve read multiple times and never get tired of) until the library closed. We’d planned to go straight to dinner but neither of us were quite hungry yet (we’d eaten a lot of snacks while we worked on the puzzle) so we went back to the treehouse, put in an order for pizza and Ani did her nails until it was ready for pick up. We drove back out, grabbed the pizza and brought it back (it was surprisingly excellent pizza!).

Afterward, we got in our pajamas, did face masks and watched A Cinderella Story (I had to text my sisters to tell them since they watched that movie a bazillion times when it came out).

Ani headed to bed and I worked for another 45 minutes or so before I went to bed too.

Wednesday:

We had a leisurely morning, playing a few more games before we went for another hike, searching for the hidden swing marked on the map (we never found it and decided it must have been replaced by the bench that was in the approximate place).

When we came back, I used the outdoor shower (I’d never used one before!) and then we finished our puzzle and listened to James Herriot’s book since we’d finished The Bletchley Riddle. Ani suggested that we go for a swim but then decided she’d rather take a bath.

The treehouse had a lovely big bathtub and I’d brought along a fancy bath salts set (I’d gotten it as a gift and I’m not a bather so I knew I’d probably never use it). She got it all set up and took a leisurely soak while I did some work and then when she got out, we played more games, including several games of Yahtzee which was at the house.

Afterward, we drove into town. The car had been saying the tire pressure was low in one tire so we stopped at a car place and they kindly checked it for me, added some more air, and finally said it was probably the sensor. We had dinner at Elijah’s Cafe which was very empty and quite delicious (I had the buffalo chicken salad which was a winner). On the way home, we crossed some railroad tracks which were very bumpy and suddenly the tire pressure on the low tire shot back to normal and never had trouble again the rest of the trip, which suggested that the car shop was correct that it was the sensor.

We went back to the treehouse, I did some pressing work things, and then we changed into pjs and watched Miss Congeniality (the internet was so glitchy at the point that we turned off the TV and watched it on the lowest possible quality on my laptop which worked fine for the rest of the movie). Ani declared this her favorite movie of the trip.

She went to bed and I worked for a bit more and then had a hard time falling asleep.

Thursday:

I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep (which stressed me out because I had to drive 2 hours back to Houston and I HATE driving when I’m at all tired) so I worked for a bit until Ani woke up and came down from the loft.

After breakfast, we changed and went on a final trail exploration, including finding the rope bridge we hadn’t seen yet. We said a last goodbye to the animals and then showered, packed up and got ready.

I suddenly realized it was slightly longer back to the airport than I’d calculated and we got out the door with not much time to spare.

We made good time until we were about 40 minutes from the airport and there was a big crash that brought everything to a screeching halt and suddenly added 30 more minutes to our trip. Now it was REALLY looking tight with our rental car return.

I was so antsy I couldn’t listen to the audiobook anymore (more James Herriott) and I turned it off and called Bart. Fortunately, traffic cleared and now we were scheduled to arrive at the airport 50 minutes before our flight departed. Since we hadn’t checked luggage and we have TSA precheck it seemed like we’d make it.

We dropped off the car, leapt onto the shuttle bus and I opened my phone to see that the texts I hadn’t seen because I was driving indicated that our flight was delayed an hour and a half. Had I seen those, I wouldn’t have been stressed AT ALL.

Now that I knew we had plenty of time, we strolled through security, went to the bathroom, and then sat down with a movie until our flight boarded (we would have made it in PLENTY of time for our original flight time though, I was happy to note).

We flew home and I listened to the month’s book club book and made the video for our trip (if I do it on the way home, everything is great. If I wait until we get home, it takes me months or more!) and then edited the photos and wrote up this post.

It was a terrific trip and so fun to have all this uninterrupted time with Ani. I already can’t wait until we do another in four years!