We took a small trip this weekend to do some strawberry picking. Jamie, Rachel and Chuck also joined us in the festivities. The weather was a beautiful low 80s with plenty of sunshine and the strawberries were plentiful.  We had so much fun that after 30 minutes, we had picked 12 quarts of strawberries.  There will be plenty of fresh strawberries and strawberry desserts.

The strawberry bunches at our house also came back this year and is finally producing some (minimal) fruit (I don’t have a green thumb like some of my friends).  Here are the first 3 strawberries of the season from our back yard.

We celebrated Mother’s Day this year with the

traditional breakfast in bed.  Katelyn and Kiersten were very excited and woke up early getting Peter out of bed to cook breakfast.  Mother’s day breakfast consisted of coffee, blueberry pancakes, fresh fruit, yogurt parfait, eggs and coffee.  Desert included chocolate.

Since Peter had to travel in the afternoon to Houston for a business trip, instead of a Mother’s Day dinner, Peter cooked a Mother’s day lunch instead.  We also invited the Myers over (Peter’s Godparents) also for the Mother’s Day lunch.  Peter grilled some shrimp, scallops and tuna served with a side of asparagus and pasta salad.  Combined with some great weather, it made for a perfect mother’s day luncheon.

We took a trip down to Fredericksburg to see Lee and Karli on Sunday.  Since Peter had never been on the Murray boat before, it was a chance to get out on the boat!  It had been raining the whole week, but fortunately the sun was started to show for the afternoon.  We took the boat out and quickly headed to a nearby restaurant on the water for lunch where the girls got wet playing in the sand and water while waiting for the food.  We spent the rest of the afternoon on the water with both girls driving the boat for periods of time. 

Katelyn really wanted to fish, but since we didn’t have have any fishing equipment, we decided to try “toe fishing”, empty oil bottle with net fishing and driving the boat around to get the fish to jump out of the water.  The kids had a great time playing on the water so we can’t wait until the water gets a little warmer to actually get in the water.

Michael Morris, Lisa’s youngest cousin graduated from James Madison University with a degree in Chemistry over the weekend so our family decided to drive the two hours down to the school to join in the celebration.  Although the rain stopped for half of the ceremony, it drizzled for all the second half.  The celebration continued afterwards at a nearby hotel with lots of food and conversation.  Rain or shine, it was a great achievement and we’re glad to have shared in it.  Congrats Michael!

Katelyn’s school at a spring fling this last weekend and originally Lisa was supposed to help out with the Cake Walk but ended up getting sick so Peter stepped in to help with the event.  The rain did help any as the outside event (complete with moon bounces) ended up having to be fit inside rather than outside the school.  So after a little setup, we started the cake walk.  Unfortunately, the some teenager must have put together the music mix as most of the songs were inappropriate for the age of the audience.  Pulling out his new phone, he found some kid songs on Pandora instead.  When the other volunteers showed up to take over running the cake walk, Peter joined Katelyn and Kiersten in all the other festivities including getting two painted tattoos.

  A fun 4 hours for all!

The kids had a blast finding all the eggs (especially the robot eggs, which most just ignored and had to be convinced that they were real eggs).  The better part was getting the candy eating the pizza and bunny cake.  Happy Easter to all.

Taking a couple days off of work, our family went down to Richmond to visit Morgan Murray, our first niece and Katelyn and Kiersten first cousin.  We had a short visit to check out adorable Morgan and check in on her mom and dad.  Katelyn and Kiersten has a great time visiting their cousin and a great time with the baby.  Welcome to the family Morgan!

On the last day full bloom day of the Cherry Blossoms, we all decided to head out there to check them out.  After work on Friday, the entire family (and Kate) headed to DC.  We arrived around 6:30 PM and headed down to the Tidal Basin to check out the blossoms. 

The blooms were amazing and so was the crowd.  We walked over to the Jefferson Memorial and the kids had a great time playing around the memorial.  Before long it was dark so we started to head home.  But before we did, we stopped by Gravely Point near National Airport so the kids can enjoy the planes flying over there heads before they landed.  It was really fun except for Kiersten who said that they were just too loud!

Peter had wanted to build the girls a play house for a year or so now so he finally took the plunge this year.  He didn’t wan to just buy a playhouse because he wanted to build a platform to put the plastic playhouse that had been in their house for the past 4 years. 

The plans were all in his head (perhaps not the best plan). After 4 trips to Lowes, three weekend days and some help from his next door neighbor (Dave) and friend (Kent), the playhouse (which is nearly 9 feet tall) is a hit with the kids.  It was tested with about 10 kids on this Saturday night playing on the playhouse. 

The kids like the playhouse so much that we’ve had our neighbor’s 3 years old spend the entire weekend playing in the playhouse.  The only remaining item is to finish the rock wall (rocks holders are on order).  One unexpected hit with the kids was the hammock under the playhouse.  This was meant for the parents, not the kids!