Some BERRY unexpected fun

Who doesn't love those days that start out ordinary and end up extraordinary.... which was the case on Thursday.

I should have sensed some kind of premonition as I look back earlier in the week, when at a completely random moment, Lilly looked at me and said "Mommy, can we make a strawberry pie?". I agreed to her request, promised we would do that this weekend and just assumed she had seen a recent episode of Strawberry Shortcake which prompted the question in the first place. I won't even know for sure where she got the idea but it was a good one for sure.

So Thursday started like most do...Winston to school, Lilly and I to the gym before she went to preschool and then for me, I was heading home for meal planning, grocery shopping and some afternoon cleaning that include a marathon catch-up phone call with a certain Florida resident.

When I saw Kathy at preschool drop-off, I mentioned Lilly's strawberry pie request and after a few minutes of talking, our day included a trip to the strawberry patch with the Brabhams after school. We met them there along with Linda and Parker and it morphed into another unexpected, great time with our friends.

Growing up in VA means strawberries in LATE May....NOT mid-April so a strawberry patch wasn't even on my radar. But just walking down the rows, moving the leaves to discover these gorgeous, ruby red jewels took me back to my childhood. I spent many Memorial Day Mondays skipping school and going with my Mom, my Grandma and my Grandpa to pick berries (I know - hard to believe it but back then in my hometown Memorial Day was NOT a school holiday!)

Grandma (Lilly's namesake) was pretty serious about this task...always on a mission, she had berries to pick, wash, pat dry and put up in the freezer in all forms....jellies, jams, cut and mixed with sugar for dessert toppings, and all other sorts of variations. My Grandpa and I would get our bushel baskets and wander off together....and a while later we'd return to find Grandma with baskets filled to the brim with berries and well, me....I would return with a handful of berries and a VERY bad stomach ache. Grandpa would just let me sit next to him and eat as many as I could pack into my belly. This memory is seared into my brain and always has been.

So, for me strawberry patches mean spending time with those we love and testing out some berries along the way.....

and by that account, our day in the Strawberry patch with the Brabhams and Azevedos was definitely a big success!!!

Now we just have to get that pie....