For the past several years now, I have done a "My Memorial Day Weekend in Pictures" blog post for you all. So here we go again this year. As I look through these pictures, it occurs to me that we didn't go any place particularly special or do anything extraordinary. But we are masters at the moments between the moments. It's where the magic often happens, you know. :) This year we just stayed close to home. We had an especially wet forecast and a lot of outdoor plans, which typically don't mix well. But thankfully, we dodged the bullet on (most of) the impending rains, and had a delightful little holiday.
Our long weekend started last Friday. Lexi attends tap and ballet classes with her friends on Friday mornings. And every week she also brings along one special "baby" that sits at the edge of class to watch. So it was Zuma's turn on Friday. Here they are gearing up for class to begin.
It happened to also be the fourth weekend of the month, which meant that the Nashville flea market was in town. John went early, and just look at what he brought back. This is an old outdoor sign from a Wendy's restaurant. It's HUGE! But he thought it looked like Lexi. Let's see. Red hair, blue eyes, pigtails, bows. Yep, I can see it. I think this lovely will look great hanging in our garage so hopefully we can get it mounted soon.
He also bought me this amazing dish of succulents for the back deck. I arranged them on our deck table with a few of my birdhouses and voila! That mushroom in the background is Lexi's little stool. It moves around the yard almost as much as she does.
Our Friday night plans actually did get rained out. Oh well, maybe next weekend instead. So we ended up making margaritas from limes (or something like that) and headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner. Here are me and Lexi (and her baby Skye) donning our matching red, white and blue for the start to the Memorial Day weekend.
My gingham is a top, but her's is a dress. Both came from Old Navy recently.
We popped into a little ice cream shop right around the corner after dinner. Lexi chose strawberry ice cream and I had a cantaloupe popsicle. John had a butter pecan cone. There are really no wrong choices here.
Saturday morning brought haze, steam, and the threat of more rain. But the rains held off long enough to squeak in a trip to the park.
We packed a picnic lunch and ate under the trees. After lunch, it was time to test out the gigantic bubble wand she got in her Easter basket this year.
Those big wobbly bubbles soon attracted lots of attention, and before we knew it we were making lots of new friends who were also interested in the serious business of blowing and popping huge bubbles.
Saturday night brought the promise of more rain, so we asked Lexi if she wanted to spend some quality play time with her Grammie and Papa so John and I could have a little date night. She did! And we did too!
We did dinner and a movie. We saw Life of the Party. It was a Melissa McCarthy flick, which meant that I was all about it, and John pretty much suffered through it. But hey, she played an awesome lady named Deanna, so there's something already, right? The storyline is a little predictable. She is a mom who is sending her daughter away to her senior year in college. Her husband asks for a divorce about 5 minutes into the movie. So she decides to get it together and get on with her life by finishing her own college degree- AT THE SAME COLLEGE AS HER DAUGHTER. Here's the official trailer.
And here we are. All smiles.
This was the concoction that John ordered for dinner. I think it was called a horseshoe. It was bread, with a hamburger patty, then cheese, covered with french fries, queso, chili, and jalapenos. I'm not sure why on earth he ordered this. Even he didn't like it (that much). I ordered a couple really fresh fish tacos that we soooo good, but this picture was better. Ha!
Sunday morning brought the sun back out. We finished up a little planting in the yard.
And it was then that I noticed that our lillies are abloom once again in the pond out back.
After a little yard work, we were ready to hit the pool for the first time this season. Lexi jumped right in. And she was completely undeterred by the chilly water temps.
I snapped the photo on the right below at the pool on Sunday and I instantly had deja vu. When we got back home I searched and searched until I found the photo on the left. It was taken almost exactly two years ago. Lexi had just turned two, and spent the entire summer in swim caps. Now, at four, she's far too grown up to wear the swim caps anymore, but other than that, she still looks exactly the same to me.
We spent the evening at home grilling in our own back yard. John manned the grill and I whipped up a couple Mai Tais for us. I am planning to post the recipe on the blog next week. It's a winner. We first fell in love with Mai Tais in Hawaii, and then were reminded how good they are when we were down in Florida last month.
Monday morning was hot and humid out. Before taking off to the pool, we knew we needed to snap Lexi's annual birthday photo since we had not done that yet and her birthday was almost a month ago. Ever since Lexi turned one, I always take this picture of her at the edge of our garden with the chalkboard declaring how old Lexi is (now). That beautiful white dress she is wearing is one I purchased on Etsy to replicate the Mary Poppins supercalifragilisticexpialidocious dress. White dresses and four-year olds don't really mix that well. After a couple minutes her pretty dress met with the red chalk on the board, and both were done for the day. In any case, I did get this pic. Yay!!
And to give you an idea of what these pictures have turned out like in the past few years, here she is last year when she just turned three.
And again and age two.
And where it all began as a babe just turning one.
But back to the events of this weekend. All was not lost once the dress and the chalkboard collided. We did get quite a few cute little outtakes before I slipped her out of that dress.
Then it was back to the pool for the second day in a row. Lexi always likes to start in the kiddy pool, and I mean for like usually two minutes or less. Just enough to get wet, and then my big girl wants in the big pool.
This will be her third summer of swim lessons, but the first time she has actually worn goggles. She is requesting them now, so we are working on it. Lessons will start again soon. This kid is fearless in the water, which as you all know, is good and bad. We have to watch her like a hawk, and we do. There isn't much down time to relax when you are at the pool with the babe, but we all have fun, and that's what counts.
Just look at her smile! We rounded out our holiday weekend with another night grilling at home, and then the rain set in again.
And now, we prepare for Subtropical Storm Alberto to move right over us and dump a lot of rain on our part of the world. I know it already has and will continue to impact lots of you too over the coming days, so please stay safe as it moves through.
That's all for now. It's been another great holiday weekend here. Hope you all had a nice one too. And I hope that we all can take a little time to remember, reflect, and express our gratitude for the reason we celebrate Memorial Day each year.
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