This was a really good, really summery weekend. It did not start auspiciously (a child melted down at a Friday afternoon swim lesson…) but it rapidly improved from there because of a few things:
1. We had a plan going into the weekend so I knew fun stuff was coming up, and wasn’t spending the entire weekend thinking through logistics and making decisions.
2. We had a lot of strategic childcare.
3. I got enough sleep.
On Friday I went with my husband to a Phillies game — this was a work event for him, so we had good seats, and while the Phillies did not distinguish themselves (it was 7-0 when we left…) it was nice to have evening plans (and an evening babysitter!), and to sit outside on a summer night drinking a beer, eating a burger, and watching some baseball.
I made it to bed by my 10:30 p.m. bedtime, and slept in the guest room, with my husband on baby duty. I assumed he would throw the baby at me around 6 a.m. but then I had the strange groggy sensation of waking up slowly on my own. Eventually I got up in the daylight-bright room, looked at the clock and — wow! 7:45.
This somewhat threw the morning timing off, so I wound up doing a shorter long run than I would have — probably fine, since the temperature was already in the 80s. Then we got the baby arranged with his care for the day (a very deliberate choice to be able to do some big kid stuff and weekend projects) and it was off with the big kids to go peach and blueberry picking.
I’ve been experimenting with area pick-your-own farms. We used to go to Linvilla all the time, but it can be pretty crowded, and while there are fun amenities there (a maze! a playground!) sometimes I’m looking for something more pastoral. So we wound up at Weaver Orchards out in Morgantown (see photo), which is about 45 minutes from us (the kids all played their devices in the car — which bought a reasonable amount of peace). They had rows and rows of white and yellow peaches, and some fun donut nectarines as well. After buying five buckets of our stone fruits, we crossed the road, checked in at the blueberry station, and picked a few pints of those off the bushes. In case anyone is wondering, pick-your-own fruit is not exactly an affordable alternative to the supermarket, especially when everyone needs their own containers to avoid arguments. I am now in possession of approximately $100 worth of seasonal fruit that needs to be eaten quickly (we will freeze some too). The baby is helping, eating blueberries like candy although I quickly learned that this creates quite the diaper situation….
Anyway! All four of the older kids enjoyed themselves, despite it being about 90 degrees out in the orchards and fields, so that was a win in my book. The rest of Saturday featured a lot of cleaning up, a quick pool trip, and a walk by the new house before a storm rolled in. We watched the lightning from the porch, which was pretty cool.
Sunday started too early — I was on baby duty and I fought him getting up from about 4:45 on. We went for a 6 a.m. walk around the neighborhood, and then I gave him to my husband and crashed for a while, which got me feeling far better. Then we all got organized to go to the beach.
In the era of having a dog, we don’t want to be gone too long, but this is actually kind of a plus — people like the beach, but get tired of the beach after a bit. Now, we have a reason to leave before the meltdowns ensue. We are less than 90 minutes from the northern part of the Jersey shore. So we drove there, and played on the sand and in the water for 90 minutes. The toddler really got into digging and building something resembling sandcastles with his siblings! He also threw a fair amount of sand, but fortunately mostly at us and not other people on the beach. We got ice cream at our favorite ice cream shop. We got home in time for dinner and getting ready for camps this week. After the baby went down, I read on the back porch for 45 minutes as the sun set. It was a nice way to end the weekend — as was making my 10:30 p.m. bedtime again and sleeping until 6:45!
With peach/blueberry picking crossed off, I am making progress on my summer fun list (the Phillies game wasn’t on there, but has been in past years — a bonus!) This week I start my “Mommy Days” with the big kids, so stay tuned for more about that…
I am always amazed how much better I feel after a good sleep! I shouldn’t be, but I am.
Fruit picking sounds like fun. We have had so much rain here in NY it’s crazy.
That was a really good summery weekend. It was fun to read too 🙂
Those of us who grew up in Philly know that part of being from Philadelphia is having really low expectations for our sports teams.
@Cate – they’d done a double header that day and they won the first one so I guess they just ran out of steam…
This sounds lovely. I enjoyed your comment about the price of pick your own fruit- whenever I have done it it has been quite pricey. A spectacular example was when we did u-pick corn, paid $$$ for them, and discovered when we got home that half of it was unusable due to not being ripe etc. But it was still fun.