It's Pickin' Time

Cade, Gracyn and I headed out early

this morning for a new adventure.

After meeting up with friends at our church,

we hit the road south toward the hill country!

Our destination... Marble Falls,

to visit the

Sweet Berry Farm's Strawberry fields.

The drive down was peaceful.

Beautiful flowers in bloom everywhere you looked and

Lightening McQueen playing in the background :)

Upon arrival we were promptly outfitted with our baskets

and headed to an open field.

The strawberries were overflowing to put it mildly!!!

The sweet scent of fresh fruit filled the air and

the butterflies were abundant among the fields.

Cade struck out on his own and our friend, Miss Julie made sure

he stayed out of the mud!

She overheard Cade saying to himself ,

"I am REALLY GOOD at picking strawberries"

apparently we have no self-esteem issues!

The strawberries themselves were gorgeous!

Plump,

perfectly Ripe,

and Ready for Picking...

While I was helping Gracyn with her basket,

Cade was determined to pick his entire row clean!

I think he picked every strawberry for a quarter mile...

Check out the basket on this guy,

AND

that satisfied smile!

This is an active farm, with horses, goats, and donkeys!

Gracyn liked the horses the best of all,

she even fed them some of her strawberries...shhhh don't tell anyone!


Some of our little LaDiEs

{ L-to-R: Landry, Gracyn, Hannah, Bethany, & Bella}


After laboring in the strawberry fields we treated ourselves to some of the farm's homemade ice cream.

Cade chose vanilla {no big surprise there}, but Gracyn tried their Berry, Berry Ice Cream which was out of this world delicious.

It's a combination of strawberry and blackberry ice cream.

It was seriously the best fresh fruit ice cream I have ever eaten,

and apparently the best Gracyn has ever eaten too b/c I had to pry her grubby fingers away from the plastic cup for the 2 meager bites I did ingest!

Here she is in all her ice cream glory with strawberry pulp on her tooth!

Hilarious

While we were walking back I asked Cade if he'd
had a good time and he replied,

"THAT WAS A BLAST, MOM"

Check out the weights of my two pickers...

Yes sir-eee, that's no joke.

Gracie picked 4 lbs

&

Cade single handedly picked 6 POUNDS of strawberries!!!

Our immediate future includes:

- strawberry pie for dessert tonight

- strawberry preserves

- smoothies for breakfast tomorrow

I plan on sharing the recipe and photos of our luscious strawberry pie!

I guess if kids are going to pick something,

I'd much rather it be strawberries :)

Way Back Wednesday

The Biltmore Estate

Asheville, North Carolina

February 2006

Cade

(14 months)

Ree and Me...a recipe for fun!

Thursday night my friend Jennifer and I loaded up the Tahoe, set the GPS, and headed south to Austin for a book signing with none other than the pioneer woman herself!

That's right kiddies, we got to hob nob with the undisputed QUEEN of food blogging,

REE DRUMMOND

What a fun night. We arrived at the bookstore around 6 p.m. and by 7, you couldn't stir 'em with a stick! It was packed. Ree briefly came down and did a quick Q&A session with the crowd then proceeded to sign copies of her first cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Which is chalked full of down home yummy southern recipes and beautiful photography and stories...just like her blog!

My favorite question that someone asked was,"How many packages of butter does she go through in a month!" In true Pioneer Woman form she replied, "That's too personal of a question, I'd rather not answer that!"

HA!

Let me tell you that she was as delightful in person as she seems on her blog! She even hooked everyone at the book signing up with a free t-shirt which her husband a.k.a. Marlboro Man toted to the event!

Now...my only dilemma is what to cook first!

What's that?

You have never even heard of The Pioneer Woman?

Well good grief.

Crawl out from beneath that rock and go visit:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/

She ROCKS!!!!!

Oh and if you want a great Christmas gift for the chef in the family you can pick up her new cookbook at a great price from amazon.com!

HE'S LEAVIN' ON A FAST TRAIN

This morning we pulled out of the driveway headed toward the train station.

Not for Cade to admire all the colorful engines, but for him to actually RIDE one...all the way to DALLAS no doubt. {with his Nani in tow}

He was soooooooo excited to be an actual passenger instead of an onlooker!

Enjoy this special day little man.

I'm praying for a super FaNtAsTiC {non-eventful} ride for you and Nonners!

Mommy can't wait to hear all about it tomorrow!

Back to Life...

back to reality.

why is it so hard to get back into the swing of things after a vacation?

this past week has been a whirlwind. i have wanted to blog since our return, but there has been no time. between catching up on the piles of laundry, cleaning my house, restocking my fridge, and catching up on lost sleep i have been so crazy busy!

we arrived home two weeks ago, Sunday evening from a quick get-a-way trip to Puerta Vallarta. the kids had a little vacation of their own at Nani and Papa's house. when we walked through the door that night, i asked cade how his vacation went and he said, "great mommy!" guess a little get-a-way was just what the doctor order for all of us.

i had a wonderful time with steve, his brother phil, my s.i.l. cindy, and my in-laws inelda & orlando. we stayed right on the beach at the club regina resort.

here are a few of my favorite things that we did:

- zip line course in the mountains

- dinner at senor frogs

- sweeping up in pool volleyball against a crew from Michigan

- reading by the pool

- bargaining on the beach with the locals for stellar silver/red coral earrings

- sleeping in

- ordering a gourmet breakfast every day

- lounging

- eating fresh guacamole daily

it was the perfect balance of relaxation & activity...i savored every moment!!!

Dinner at Beer & Tacos

{so yeah, you know what we had}

Breakfast al fresco

Senor Frogs here we come! You order guacamole, you make it!!!

B.B.Q. bib for the youngB.B.Q. bib for the young at heart

Picture Perfect Views

Weekend Wind Down

Highlights of our weekend in Dallas...

{Dining Here} for our 8 year anniversary. Mmmmmmmm

{Sitting in HERE} for the inaugural event at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium.

Can I just say that this place is amazing...I think the $1.1 billion price tag proves that, but none the less it is first class from top to bottom!

From the largest retractable roof in the world to the sheer capacity of 100,000 people it's a marvel. Thanks to Mr. Jerry Jones for keeping up the notion that, "Everything is bigger in Texas."

I was the first person EVER to sit in seat 5 section C333 for the concert!!!

{Staring At This} The King of Country Music!!!! Our seats were smack dab in the middle of the largest HD television screen in the world, that's right kiddies, IN. THE. WORLD.

Yeah, I know...you can hate. me. now.

Dear George,

It makes my heart happy that you don't resort to strobe lights, pyrotechnics, or stage dancers to draw a crowd at your shows. A man, a guitar, and a band singing hit after hit is all fans really want anyhow. You are living proof that a man can get better looking with age...love ya George!!!! {blush} Be still my heart!

{Listening To Him} he's got some good music out and he's not too hard on the eyes either!

P.S. This weekend brought to you by Nani and Papa...without their grandchild sitting, none of this would have been possible :) xoxoxo

The Masters

Living the life in Augusta Georgia!

Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo...how about you, you, you?!?

We polished off the last day of our Spring Break with a trip to the zoo! I decided a little slide show was in order to share some highlights of the road trip! It was Gracyn's first time to visit a zoo and Cade's second. The sun was shining, a breeze was blowing, the animals were majestic, and the only stinky area was the elephants...so fun times were had by all.

Cade reported that his favorite animal he'd seen that day was the sloth and Gracie reported her favorite thing that day was eating all the snacks out of the snack bag! HA!

Enjoy

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com