Strawberry picking and fun when Daddy's home

Dan's overtime is just crazy lately. We definitely enjoy the time we get together when we get it. Dan and I are both counting down the days until our "staycation" at the end of this month (as are the girlies!). It will be heaven just being together.

We went up to Captain's Cove yesterday evening for dinner. It was such a beautiful day! Girlies were putting on a show while we waited to be seated; it was quite entertaining, and of course they had fans out to wazoo.

We went out to Weaver's this morning to pick strawberries at their PYO fields. We just loved their strawberries last year, and we always compare every single strawberry we eat to the ones that we picked last year. Needless to say, our hopes were high for another delicious crop of strawberries and we weren't disappointed. We picked 10 lbs and are looking forward to making some strawberry pie(s) within the next couple of days.

Weaver's was having their 'Taste of the Orchard' sampling day today, and it couldn't have been better timing. After we picked our strawberries we went down to the store for the samples, and made out like bandits. We essentially ate lunch for free. They had all of their vendors there with their homemade samples and we tasted everything from hot dogs and homemade subs to tomato pie and pineapple salsa. Dan was so excited that they had local coffee samples. Maddie, Faith, and Abrie had a BLAST doing a "treasure quest:" they each had to go look for clues at the 17 different stands and fill in the missing words that eventually spelled out a message. They then turned in their worksheets for a free ice cream cone. While they ate their ice cream cones there was a clown making balloon animals. Maddie and Faith both went up to the clown to ask for an animal. I thought it was hilarious when the clown asked Faith what kind of animal she wanted: "I would like a blue whale, please! With a blowhole, please!" The clown had no idea how to make a whale, but she did the best she could and Faith was ecstatic to have her blue whale!!

Nene and Grampa came over for a little bit this afternoon, and Dan grilled some steak and sausages before having to go in early for work. Faith was trying out some rollerskates (a patron from the library who is such a sweetheart gave me all sorts of stuff, and the rollerskates were included) and Grampa helped. And, we had plenty of strawberries for dessert!