Girls' Getaway to Grapevine

Kenna and I had a fabulous Girls' Getaway this past Friday and Saturday. We used the Passport2Purity curriculum. It consists of a parent's manual, a workbook for the preteen, and audio messages on CD. Then you just plan your own weekend based on your schedule, budget, and interests of your preteen. The material isn't perfect, but it was a great way to guide us through some discussions about issues Kenna will be facing in the near future - such as peer pressure, dating, and purity. There are two main purposes for the weekend - to talk about these topics and to have fun together. Just spending time away helped strengthen our relationship and hopefully the investment we made will let Kenna know how important she is to us and how much we care about the challenges she'll face as a preteen and teenager.


We went to Grapevine for our getaway and had a blast! We took a lot of pictures to document the weekend - here are a few of my favorites:

Shopping for school clothes at Grapevine Mills Mall:

Lunch at Chili's:

We stayed at the Gaylord Texan. They have a gorgeous atrium and on weekends in the summer they have special entertainment, like "The Golden Cowboy":

There are all kinds of rocks in the hotel atrium and Kenna loved climbing up on them. I'm not sure if you're really supposed to let your kids climb on them, but there were no signs, and no one said anything to us.

We had fun walking around the hotel atrium taking pictures:

Kenna was so excited about swimming in the hotel pool:

On Saturday morning, we finished the last couple of sessions of the curriculum, checked out of our hotel, and then headed back to the mall for pedicures:

We enjoyed a celebration lunch at the Rainforest Cafe:

At lunch, I presented Kenna with a gift that Robert and I had picked out for her. It was a Willow Tree box with a mother and daughter on it and inside was an inexpensive cross necklace. Under the necklace was the big surprise - an MP3 player! She's been wanting one for awhile now and this seemed like a good occasion to splurge a little (although we did get a pretty good deal on it at Costco). She was super excited about it and has been listnening to it almost nonstop since.

I'm so glad that we took the time and made the investment in this weekend. I know I will treasure the memories and I think Kenna will too. And hopefully we laid the groundwork for open communication as Kenna aproaches her teen years. I still am having trouble getting my head around the idea that she'll start middle school tomorrow and that she'll be a teenager in a year and a half! I don't think I'm ready for this!!