Momma Moody and the not so bummer Summer

So, it's SUMMER BREAK over here!!!  Yes, the girls' last day of school was yesterday and boy are we all happy.  Lazy mornings, no strict routines, being able to watch Kitchen Nightmares together at night, basically just all around good and relaxed time.  I ASSumed my daughters would be dialed in to this feeling this morning.  Well, they were, SUN dialed in.  Those little jerks girls that I heart were all up in my business at 6:57am this morning.  Apparently, in my haste, I had not CC'd them on the Leisurely Summer memo and hadn't filled their chill pill Rx in time (same Rx and memo that I always forget on Weekends).  Not only were they in my bedroom at this time, but, Athena had already compiled what they wanted their summer to look like.  As you may remember from last year (wait, maybe I didn't blog about it...ooops...shoulda) Athena's list (when she was 6) included 12 things, some were things like 1. learning a new language that uses symbols like Chinese, 2. reading the bible. the whole thing, 3. learning how to make a french braid, and 4. watching the entire Thriller video. The whole thing.  We did about half of the list last year.  None of the things mentioned, but, the other more attainable things like go swimming, go visit North Carolina, go ice skating.

Now, the list this year seemed more reasonable.  Including things like going fishing, learning the words to a song and performing it, and eating a dish from a different country everyday.  The ONE thing that seems to have carried over from last summer to this summer was the Thriller video watching.  She had this illustration at the end of her list.............

I asked her what she was doing in the picture, she said "watching the video and there is super glue underneath my butt so that I do not get up from the chair".

Saylor's list included having dance parties, going to Hawaii, eating at Crave cupcakes every MWF, and having a lot of playdates "that you always promise but we never do" with friends.

Ladies and gentlemen, I actually did wake up jazzed for Summer, gotta tell you.   I immediately wanted to do something not on the list. We've toyed with the idea of going blackberry picking at some point.  We'd missed it twice before before of timing.  One time we'd driven ONE HOUR to the strawberry fields and they were EMPTY and the fields were barren and had all been picked.  The owner was all "you shoulda called" and I was all "yeah".

Anyhow, luckily both of my girls go with the flow, so they were stoked after I CALLED and the blackberries were ready for us to go pick them..  I mean, we go to farmer's markets all of the time and joined a co-op (THIS one) so they understand the role/function of the supermarket and what it all means.  It seemed (like everything else) like a teachable moment, I wanted them to actually see what a farm looks like and how it feels to pick fresh fruit and how differently it tastes.   And so that's what we did. We headed out to a local farm that was about 40 min away from our house.  We arrived and other gung ho families were there getting their blackberry pickin' on.  There was a system that the owner/farmer had created and it seemed to work well for us.  Instructions given, buckets handed out and sunscreen applied.  We. were. doing this.

After....mmm.....12 minutes...we'd had our fair share (pun intended) of blackberry fun.  It was hot, not many were actually ripe enough for picking, and there were Texas sized hornets and beetles and insects.  It was really fun though.  It was great to be amidst nature and watching the girls get excited when they picked a nice, dark, ripened, juicy, succulent berry.  We saw the blackberry flower, then the green bud and then the pink/red berry and finally the ripened blackberry.

So, all in all, it was fun!  It was 40 minutes there, 40 minutes there, 40 minutes back.   Our first two hours of summer vacation, done!

Now, off to our Japan inspired lunch.   Day one, half way done, just 80 more to go :)