Camping at 7R Ranch, Texas

Andy's parents and Andy's brother, Dave, purchased adjoining land out at 7R Ranch. It's about an hour and a half out of Fort Worth. It's a great Ranch, the views are beautiful, and the developers are working hard to create a really nice community. They have a private, stocked, lake, pools, community centers, with full kitchens, lookout towers with air conditioning, There were just finishing construction on the rec center which includes a weight room, basketball court, lap pool, and large theater room, to name a few...

Anyway, The only building on the family property is a garage my in laws build to store all their things while they are in Russia. It also holds all the ATV's and such. IT has a sink with running water and a small AC unit, but no bathroom. There were bathrooms and showers at the community centers, however it was about a 7 minute drive to the closest one...

Here's Aaron sitting on the riding mower in the garage. Not that there is any grass up there yet.

Our family was staying with Andy's parents in the pop up tent trailer. It was pretty comfortable, except the air conditioning wasn't working the first two nights.

Here's Noah and his cousin Justin on a ride in the go cart. They had fun with it but the chain kept coming loose, and finally it just wouldn't tighten up anymore so we had to stop riding it.

Aaron and his cousin John sitting on the ATV. The threads on one of the wheel bolts ended up getting stripped, but we were still able to ride it, then one of the other bolts came loose on the same wheel and the threads ended up stripping on that bolt too. After that it really couldn't be ridden anymore.

I didn't get a picture of the all terrain golf cart.. It ended up breaking too. It ran out of battery juice on the way back from the pool so they towed it back to camp... They didn't notice till they got back, the switch inside the motor compartment that warns not to tow until it's switched to the tow position. We're not sure what needs to be fixed on it, but it won't run.

Also, Dave's wife Rachel was driving a group to the bathrooms one morning and noticed coming back that her tire was low. It ran flat before they got back to camp. She had accidentally driven right along the culvert (drainage pipe that runs under the driveway) and sliced the tire open.

The last night there Andy and I had an opportunity to talk about Vincent. It was nice to share our experience with his family. We did it in the evening after the kids had been put to bed. It was quiet and peaceful. Even if Rachel did complain about having a hard time staying awake while we were talking...

Despite all the toys getting broken we still had a great time, just being together with family, swimming and playing games. I think we all agreed that we would not be having another family reunion up there again until the cabins are built. It was pretty hot, and um.. local bathrooms would have been nice.

The next moring we drove back to Fort Worth, and Aaron and I got ready for our flight home. It was uneventful till we got to Las Vegas where they started boarding our flight early.. then we had to sit on the plane waiting and waiting for connecting flights to arrive and the passengers to get to our plane. After about 45 minuted of sitting on the plane, on the tarmac, in 120 degree heat, they deboarded us because the wings on the plane had overheated and they needed to find us a new airplane... Long story short, we were suppose to arrive back in Boise at 10:00 pm, but instead didn't arrive till 11:57 pm. Poor Aaron was just worn out!