Weekend at the Cabin: Strawberry Picking; Fun In The Sun

Another fabulous summer weekend in the books!

Andi was traveling again last week, so I decided to take Tory and Aden to the cabin on Thursday afternoon to give us a long weekend at the lake. With no big plans on Fridays or Mondays this summer, the kids and I are able to make every weekend a long weekend at the lake if we like. A huge perk of stay-at-home-mom life, for sure!

Of course, packing up the car with two little kids underfoot and driving to the cabin for 1 1/2 hours with them by myself isn't without incident. I assumed Tory and Aden would sleep during the drive, so naturally they both decided to show me up and were WIDE AWAKE the entire time. We weren't pressed for time though, so I decided to make the most of their activeness and made several stops along the way.

First, we stopped by a park in Chisago Lakes to run off some steam and to take our picture in one of those iconic adirondack chairs along Highway 8. Tory was super fascinated by this and exclaiming, "This chair would be perfect for my Uncle Adam!" who, in her eyes, is the tallest man in the world. Ha!

(Not exactly the best photo because I could only stand back from the chair so far; Aden kept trying to leap off head-first, that silly boy.) 

Farther down the road, we stopped by Pure and Simple Foods to visit the farm animals and pick up some breakfast supplies for the next morning. Last summer, this place had gorgeous flowers for sale, but this summer ... yeah, not so much. Darn.

I could eat these two up, I love them so.

The kids and I capped off our night with pizza to-go from Cumberland's new Lakeside Pizza, which we took to the playground for a picnic dinner. I didn't feel like cooking but I didn't feel like wrangling two kids in a restaurant by myself for another night either, so a playdate at the park was the perfect solution.

Andi joined us at the cabin later on Friday and Andi's sister Lindsay and husband Kyle came for a visit on Saturday morning. Shortly afterwards, we all headed to nearby Crystal Lake Berries to pick strawberries. This is one of my favorite things to do during summers at the cabin. The weather on this morning was perfect for picking strawberries -- sunny and warm, but not too hot.

This was Aden's first time picking berries by himself (last year, he sat in his car seat and watched), which made this visit even more special. He loved eating the berries as I knew he would, and kept his clothes surprisingly clean (I think because he stuffed whole strawberries in his mouth!).

Once again, Crystal Lake Berries did not disappoint. We practically had the patch to ourselves, and the owners were so friendly and helpful. Best of all, we walked away with three heaping buckets of strawberries for $8/each. Can't beat it! Chances are, we'll be back again before the season ends. 

The weather was so gorgeous Saturday afternoon, we spend the rest of the day on the lake. Andi was adamant about purchasing a floating dock this summer, and once again he was right -- it's such a fun place to sit and chill on the water. 

Sunday morning, the six of us went for a morning boat ride around the lake before Andi, the kids and I split off to attend the Musky Festival in Hayward, WI. (More to come on our time at Musky Fest in another post ...)

Summer is here, and it feels so good!