And the Livin's Easy

Like most people, I love summer. Even though I'm not really acclimated to hot weather (sister has low heat tolerance!), the brightness, the freshness, the long-lingering days are a welcome respite from the rest of the year. As a teacher, though, I particularly relish the first day of summer: it offers so much promise when it goes well, and today...well, today just may have been the best start to summer I've had.

Gracie and I started the day by making a fresh summer fruit salad from the goodies she chose at the orchard. For a kid who normally wants to start her day with M&Ms and Doritos, this was a highly welcome change.

Even better? She loved it!

If there was any way to top eating what she'd chose from the orchard, it would've been going back to get more...so we did. At the Strawberry Festival, Gracie, her daddy, and I made fruit skewers:

Planted a pumpkin seed in exchange for three free pounds (woot!) of Pick Your Own pumpkins in the fall:

Made a strawberry on a stick paper craft:

And decorated our own chocolate-covered strawberries...nomnomnom:

Once all the activities were done, we simply ate...

...and played.

After cruising through the store to check out the bees hard at work 

and grab a fresh-strawberry slushy,

we decided to play

and eat a bit more.

And fittingly enough, we capped off the festival with a family photo because this was one of those times that was so fun, so simple, and so happy that it bears recording for posterity's sake.

These were the first few hours of my official summer vacation. In a few weeks, I'm sure I'll be lamenting the heat & humidity or griping that there's not enough to occupy me & my 3-year-old during the sweltering days. But until then? It's summertime and, so far...the livin's easy.