Berry Cute

Erin's on summer vacation, which means she gets to hang out with me.  A lot.  And do some fun stuff, but also just get to tag along to places Mama has to go.  Like Newark, to the bike shop.  Twice.  Which is not all bad, as the bike shop is one block away from the most amazing donut shop in the universe.  She also gets to make multiple trips to Fair Hill - to the office, to the field, and maybe if it's not raining tomorrow to Olympian Boyd Martin's farm to take some pictures at a clinic we host.  She doesn't mind - she gets to sit on cross country fences, and see a horse or three.

Lunch outdoors at Klondike Kate's in Newark, before picking up my bike from the bike shop.

She also gets to come to the strawberry farm to pick lots of strawberries.  She actually PICKED berries this year, which is a first.  Before she just stole them out of my basket.  But today she picked her very own berries.  Zero went in to her basket.  But plenty went in to her belly.  She likes picking berries for about 10 minutes or so.  Which is, honestly, 10 minutes longer than I like picking strawberries.  I just like eating strawberry shortcake enough to make up for the fact that I hate picking strawberries.

Of course no trip to the strawberry farm is complete without a good amount of time spent on the playground, with the gigantic strawberry slide.

Erin being a T-Rex

Although it's not officially summer vacation yet for Dexter (June 14 is the last day of school) we've been letting it feel a little bit like summer this week.  No homework allowed us the chance to pick up a pizza and take it to the pool for dinner on Tuesday.  Both kids had a lovely time, although Erin turned in to a Popsicle after about 30 minutes of hard swimming in the big pool.

Wednesday was Dexter's "Portfolio Picnic" at school, so Daddy got to go to school to have a picnic with Dexter and his classmates, and see some of Dexter's writing.  He also got to go to Erin's swim lesson that morning to watch Erin swim, and to stay and play with her for a while after.  It was a good morning for Erin - she was the only kid at her lesson so Ms Dana practiced some of the skills she needs to do to get her yellow wrist band.  She swam across the width of the pool (she gets a little nervous in the middle, but she can totally do it) and she learned how to tread water - she has to do that for 30 seconds.  She made it 10 seconds on her first attempt - I'm guessing by the end of the summer she'll have a yellow band.

Tomorrow is supposed to be Field Day at school.  But tomorrow it's also supposed to rain, so Field Day may well be moved to Monday instead.  We're winding down to the last little bit of busy before it's finally time for summer vacation, and camp, and swim team in the outdoor pool, and the lake house, and lots of book reading and hanging out and doing nothing.  I foresee plenty of mornings in our pajamas, coming soon!