Remember that time when....

Growing up, I was always very close to my grandmother, who we call Mema. I don't remember her ever treating me like a little kid, but rather more like a friend. From as early as I can remember, I always spent lots of time with her. In my early childhood years, my grandparents owned a lake house. Mema would pick me up when she got off work on a Friday night and we would drive down to meet Papa Bob at the lake house. We would then watch Full House and all the other shows on TGIF. On Saturday morning, Mema would make pancakes or cinnamon toast with very chocolaty milk or, if it was cold, hot chocolate with a spoonful of marshmallow fluff on top. Then we would drive into the small nearby town to shop at a flea-market style store called Kate's. Shopping was always a favorite pastime of ours. As I got older, she and I would go on girls' weekends to Helen, GA or Pigeon Forge, TN or other nearby towns so that we could browse through all the little shops. As a teenager I spent many nights at her house. We would stay up late eating snacks, playing card games, and watching Lifetime movies or mysteries.
Now she is my last remaining grandparent and still as spry and active as ever. In March, she celebrated her 84th birthday and I told her when she had an opening in her very busy schedule, I would take her to lunch. That day finally came, and Robin and I, along with the baby girls, set out to have our girls' lunch, leaving plenty of time to get back to pick up the boys from school in the afternoon. We went by to pick up Mema from her house and went for lunch downtown. We enjoyed a delicious lunch, sitting outside overlooking the river. We finished lunch with plenty of time to spare, and began our leisurely walk back to the car. That's when it dawned on me. I didn't have my keys. And they were most likely locked inside the van. Luckily Paul keeps the spare keys at work, so although it would be a nuisance to have to wait, at least he would be able to come to our aid and get us back on our way. Except, when I called him, he informed me that the key was at the house. And now there wouldn't be enough time for him to go back to the house, then bring us the key, and have me back to pick Nathanael up from school, so Paul would have to do that too. And we would have to wait. And we were downtown. With two babies. Who were tired. It was past their nap times. And Robin and I needed to pee. But at least it was a beautiful day and we decided to walk around downtown while we waited.

Finally Paul arrived with the key and Nathanael, we were able to get into the van, but were left with insufficient time to get Mema back to her house plus make it to pick Sam up from school on time. Luckily Mimi came to the rescue, picking Sam up from school. The only hiccup with that element of the adventure was that Sam initially denied that she was his grandmother when the teacher directed him to the car. He eventually came to recognize that she was, indeed, his grandmother and he went home with her.
After we arrived to pick Sam up at Mimi's house after 3:00, Robin and I decided, because we love spending time with our children so much, to take them to pick strawberries. The day had not been adventurous enough. We made a quick stop at both of our houses to change outfits, gather water and such, and proceeded to the strawberry patch. Keep in mind that the girls were deliriously tired at this point. This year we tired out a new strawberry patch, a little closer to home. Robin and I each got two 1-gallon baskets and the kids were given little baskets to fill and then dump into the bigger basket. Sam and Nathanael did pretty well. Claire wasn't very particular, picking red ones, green ones, rotten ones....

Meanwhile Tessa was crying and hanging from Robin's leg, Claire was losing patience each time she stumbled and spilled her strawberries, and the three boys were getting a little wild. Robin and I had noticed that the plants seemed to be planted a bit shallow and we had each inadvertently pulled at least one plant out while trying to pick a strawberry. Well, apparently one of the boys had this same experience, and perhaps one of them may have tossed a strawberry, and the next thing we know, the strawberry lady is sweetly asking them to stop destroying her patch. We tried to quickly finish up and get the heck out of there. But not before trying to catch a shot of all three of my kids. Claire wasn't interested.

We were having such a grand time together that we decided to stop by the dairy on the way home. The boys love cows. 

We were finally on our way home. Then Nathanael announced that, even though he and Max had just peed in Max's front yard no more than an hour and a half earlier, he had to go pee. Right then. Could not hold it. And there was no where to stop. Except a school. With lots of cars in the parking lot. So, though I'm sure it's probably generally frowned upon, we stopped in front of that school, and the boys giggled all the way to the edge of the woods, where a "No Trespassing" sign was posted, and peed.