Country Livin'

From year to year, we pretty much do the exact same things when we come to the Poconos.

For instance, we always arrive late on Thursday night and stay up too late talking and laughing with each other. We always grill for dinner on Friday. We go out to breakfast at the same local diner on Saturday morning. And then we always make a big homemade breakfast before we leave on Sunday.

It's all about tradition, people.

So it should come as no surprise, then, that we went out to breakfast this morning. YUM. Once back at "the farm," we set out to enjoy another day outdoors. We didn't see much sunshine today, but it was still nice out and the temperature was much more comfortable than yesterday.

We spent some more time down by the pond. Tyler and Marie played fetch with Miller in the water. He loves it now, they can't keep him out! He was so good at swimming out to get his frisbee and bringing it right back in for more.

Well, he does have to work on giving it back a little easier. It turns out he's into "tug of war," too.

When he'd come out of the water, Sashi would approach him and try to take his frisbee. She wouldn't do any of the work to swim out there and get it, though! (Smart girl!)

While Miller swam, Michael ran Tessa up and down the hill. She loves to run, especially when she's experiencing complete "freedom" off of her leash!

I think the Poconos is Tessa's version of heaven.

We eventually walked back up to the house, and decided to go blueberry picking with Susan. There is a wild blueberry patch across the road, and we knew we'd want some berries to make pancakes for tomorrow morning. So Tyler, Marie, Michael, Susan, and I set out with the dogs to gather wild berries.

Picking blueberries is time consuming! I have major respect for the people who do this to supply our markets with berries. The greenery was super tall all around the blueberry patch, so Tessa had a bit of a hard time making her way through everything out there. We had to stomp down a path for our short-legged little girl! :)

Holding the share of blueberries that Michael and I picked. Each and every one of them are precious, as they were obviously picked by hand!

When we got back to the house... more sitting and chatting, of course! Tessa took the opportunity to rest:

I decided to do a mini photo shoot with Hunter in Susan's garden, but the boy is INSANE. He just does NOT. STOP. MOVING. I got a couple of cute ones, which I'll probably share here once I have time to edit them, but in the meantime, I figured I'd share some of the "outtakes" so you can see what it's like to photograph a VERY ACTIVE almost-14-month-old.

Too busy to look at me.

Cute shots of his backside are much easier to come by, I assure you.

Little man is a stair climbing FOOL. Probably his favorite activity.

Forget smiling. If he looked at me, it was usually to make funny faces.

There is also a lot of running involved.

The top of his head is just as easy to get as his backside. At least we'll always have these parts of him captured. ;)

Tonight, my mom, Susan, and Vinny had a wedding to go to, so they left for that around 5:00 p.m. Us kids relaxed a bit more, showered, then relaxed again. The guys cracked open some beers, and the girls some wine.

We took some photos in front of the White Meadows Pub sign (outside of the bar that is in the carriage house):

The girls chatted and cooked up a delicious pasta dinner (meat sauce, garlic bread, salad!) while the guys watched a movie. After our meal, the guys started a small fire in the fire pit and we roasted a few s'mores before retreating indoors to watch a movie together.

All in all, not a bad day in the country. It's really too bad that it's already time to go home tomorrow. :(