Blueberries and GaGa Ball

On Wednesday, Box 402 options for our weekend of fun were either GaGa Ball (FREE!) or St. Augustine (Cha-Ching!). Although we really wanted to do both, St. Augustine just couldn't fit in to our time schedule. So we are delaying that a week and going to celebrate Mother's Day next weekend there! How fun! 

The weather was BEAUTIFUL this weekend and this morning we started the day out blueberry picking at Beck Brothers Blueberries.

There were tons of delicious berries on thousands of blueberry bushes around the farm.

Lily evaluated each one before she decided if it was worthy of "the bucket".

I think we sampled more than actually made it into the buckets. Breakfast off the bush. Yum!

I loved looking at all the colors and would love to take my art students out here to paint.

And here are our beauties.

Yup. Blueberry picking on a nice May morning in Orlando was just the way to start our day.

And when we got home how could we NOT make the biggest blueberry pie ever!

Delish!

Next it was on to GaGa ball. A GaGa ball pit isn't exactly something you pick up at the local Walmart and put together in a few minutes. So we had to improvise.

We racked our brains and finally decided the gazebo in the garden at our elementary school might work. It would definitely be a modified version of the game but the goal was fun and we were intent on having it.

Probably not as exciting as a real GaGa Ball game.

Especially since there were only four of us.

But it was competitive and got pretty intense between the kids.

 We finished off the day with a kickball game and walk through the neighborhood. 

Looking forward to next weekend's St. Augustine adventure!

Box 402 we love you! Two weekends of fun from one.

Box 402

We've added a few little things to P.O. Box 143

I found these great European travel themed tissues at Michaels.

And I couldn't pass up these note cards and stationary sets. They are a great reminder of our families ultimate goal for next summer...to travel to Paris to celebrate Gabriella's graduation!

The kids were so excited to open box 402 last night and see what 

weekend surprise plans we would have.

This time it was Benjamin's turn to open the box.

They love putting the key and turning it slowly.

Pulling out the envelopes is almost like pulling a present out from under the Christmas tree!

The girls got to open the envelopes this time.

Lily's "Cha-Ching" envelope had St. Augustine inside. 

What a great city! 

Full of awesome history.

Gabriella's "Free" envelope had GaGa Ball.

I had NO idea what GaGa Ball was!!

Apparently you need something like this.

And the game goes something like this.

We already have a pretty busy weekend. 

It will be interesting to see which activity we get to do from Box 402. 

But we are excited for either one!

Box 401

This past Wednesday was our first time opening a box.

Box 401

Drum roll please :-)

And here are our choices...

Our free option is to play football.

And our "cha-ching" option is to go ice skating! 

Since we have extra money this week we are going ice skating!!

It's hot outside!

But inside it's nice and chilly!

Eight is enough for this family.

There was a little frustration from Benjamin but Gabriella helped keep him going.

Smiles were all around. Even after the frustration.

Our Box 401 brought a great day of skating and now it was time to head home and write our "Thank You" notes!

We thought these were tasty cute for our first box.

 After our weekend activity from each box we decided we would go home and write a TY note to the box. 

Everyone was allowed to write whatever they wanted in the note.

No one was allowed to tell anyone else what they wrote.

All the notes were put back into Box 401. Next year when we have finished opening all the boxes, we'll go back through and open all our thank you notes. 

I am so excited about all the new memories we are making!!

Inside P.O. Box 143

So what's inside P.O. Box 143 that's going to help us make Gabriella's last year our most memorable?

First we started making a list. We planned for 30 weekends because the kids are with their dad every other weekend.

Each person had to come up with 15 ideas that were free.

And 15 ideas that cost money. 

We bought special paper, envelopes, and of course fancy silver sharpies.

We went around the table and each one of us gave an until...

We had 30 free ideas and 30 ideas that required money.

We folded all the memory ideas and put them into our envelopes.

Licking 60 envelopes got a little yuck after a while!

Yup Benjamin is still licking envelopes.

So each weekend there would be two choices. 

We would open the P.O. Box for each weekend the Wednesday before. 

If we had extra money we could choose the "cha-ching" activity. 

If not we could choose the "free" activity. 

And some weekends we could choose to do both!

All the envelopes were mixed up. We had no idea what was where. 

We can't wait until we open our first box!