Blueberries and Friends

My brother drove the kids and I up to Ocala yesterday to visit my dear friends. It was so nice to catch up with Elizabeth--we met 10 years ago when we were camp counselors at the United Methodist Camp in Leesburg. She is Grace's godmother, and her daughter, Jodi, is my goddaughter.

Elizabeth is the proud owner of Pea Pie Baby, a fabulous online children's store. The kids loved playing with all of her demos. Next time I have a baby, I'm buying a "Bebe Au Lait" aka "Hooter Hider" and a pack of her swaddling blankets! As it is, we left with a boxful of merchandise that I just couldn't resist, like an Ellie Bellie messenger bag for Grace's birthday, monster bowling set, a monster puppet for our plane ride back to Utah, and some other fun items as well. Each kid also now owns a harmonica. Now they can play with my Papa!

While we visited, we took our kids to Southland's Blueberry Farm in Gainesville. Grace picked 1/2 pound by herself, and between Kyle, Grace, and I, we picked 5.5 lbs of blueberries! AJ picked and ate, picked and ate, and ended up with an empty bucket. He's had some diaper problems today. I'll spare the details. We had sour cream and blueberry pancakes for breakfast today, and anticipate baking a blueberry pie sometime this week. There's also a local produce stand next to the blueberry farm, so I picked up some fresh corn on the cob, peas and eggplant to supplement our meals. Tonight we're having beef stroganoff with corn on the cob for a side. It's AJ's favorite vegetable.

We finished our day off with Zaxby's, a delicious chicken place kind of like Chik Fil A. I think my brother had a good time, and we're so grateful to him for chauffeuring us across Central Florida.