Memorial Day Weekend - Lake Holiday and Strawberry Picking

Memorial Day weekend this year was such a blast for us. 

Saturday we spent the day with our church family. Our friends Carolyn and Justin invited the whole group of us over to their house for a picnic. The food was good but the company was even better. Hadley enjoyed the time playing with her little friend Sarah...

Caleb had a blast with the big kids playing water balloons...

...and Reid had fun keeping his eye on the dogs. Reid also had a lot of fun being carried or walked around the yard by various people throughout the afternoon, which gave my back a break for sure! Sometimes I feel like it is hard to visit at these types of events as we are trying to keep up with all three kids, but at our church activities, I don't feel like that at all. There's always lots of extra hands who take notice and try to lend a helping hand so that we can enjoy visiting too and don't feel overly stressed - a true family. They make us and our kids feel loved!

The community there at Lake Holiday has its own private beach for the residents there and their guests, so we were all invited to spend the rest of the day soaking in some rays while splashing in the water or playing in the sand. Though we thought it might be too chilly at first, it warmed up after lunch and was actually beautiful out. 

Wow! What is this stuff?

Look at that beautiful beach! Who knew we had something like this so close?

Knowing that I can't tolerate cold water (especially because it makes my joints stiffen as a result of the Lupus), I didn't even bring a swimsuit for myself. However, Dave and the kids were prepared.

Though I had it in the bag, I didn't put Reid's suit on either because I thought the water might be too cool for such a little boy. When we walked down to the shore to put our feet in, he went right in wearing his clothes though! So much for just wading with Mommy...

Caleb really liked being part of what the big boys were doing.

We went up on the shore a few times to take a break from that frigid May lake water, and they had a good time scooping the sand. Eventually though, the lake beckoned to them again and back down the slope they went. 

We made some new friends.

Sunday we did what we always do - church! I found Reid and Hadley starting their day off right, reading a few Bible stories over in the book corner before we got started for the day.

Monday Dave had to work so we didn't really have the typical three-day weekend as a family. However, he did get the opportunity to work from home that day which made it nice to pop in and see him here and there.

Though Daddy couldn't spend the entire day with us, we did find ways to have some fun. You've got to have fun with these little ones, right?

One of these boogers knocked over the container of puffs and the next thing I know they are both on the floor lapping them up...Good thing Mommy had just mopped!

Who needs a puppy?

Here comes the big brother! They act like I don't give them snacks LOL!

The main thing on the agenda that day was strawberry picking. Last year by the time we went to pick, they were all gone, so I tried to stay on the ball this time. Such an adventure is not really something I wanted to tackle solo though with three babies, so I asked my mom if she wanted to come too and she called Courtney as well.

Most of the berries had been picked over, making it a little tough to find ones that were completely ripe, especially for the kids. Nonetheless, we did end up with three containers eventually. Caleb stuck with it pretty well. Hadley, on the other hand, did okay at first but got tired of it after a bit and wanted to be carried.

Reid didn't do a whole lot of picking, but he was good at dumping out the ones we'd already picked and flopping down on top the strawberries so that several of them were smashed to the back of his britches, leaving stains on the backside of his khaki shorts.

In the past, we've picked apples, blueberries, sour cherries, raspberries, blackberries, and several veggies out of the garden, but this was a first for us. It was probably one of the hardest ones for the kids to do since you had to pull back the plants to get to the berries and find ones without any white (plus they'd already been picked over earlier in the weekend), but it was still a good activity. I'm glad we went.

The best part, especially for Caleb, were the treats at the end. They had pound cake and cheesecake topped with strawberries and whipped cream for sale on a wagon at the entrance to the patch, so we had been anticipating getting some the whole time we picked....Boy was it good - enough to make us all want to come back!

I'm grateful for the men and women who fought to give us the freedom to have special weekends like this.