the essence

Yesterday we took a full family day. Well, first I escaped in the morning while the entire house was still sleeping & went grocery shopping. Completely alone. That becomes quite luxurious once you have kids.

After I came home from my outing we left for Lithia Springs. Ray had mentioned it the other day & Addison was ecstatic about going. We were there for three hours & we had a picnic lunch & Ray took the girls in the water. I sat on the side with Clay which gave me some time to do a little reading & chatting on the phone.











Addison has the right idea - hold onto Kate's tube & make Kate pull her around the water!



The gift card I received on my birthday for IKEA has been burning a hole in my pocket so we went there next. We only had the single stroller so Kate rode in that, I carried Clay in the sling (killed my back but it's so fun having people ooh & ah at him!) & Addison walked. Our first stop was the cafe for hot dogs & frozen yogurt! Oh the yogurt was so delicious I had to stop myself from buying a second one!

The excursion turned up the practical: a couple of cutting boards & two sets of juice glasses-which match the set of water glasses I bought there several months ago.

By the time we made it home we'd been gone for about seven hours & we were exhausted! Ray had to call out of work so we could go yesterday but, thankfully, he has off for the next couple of Saturdays & we're hoping to have some more family days like this one!