Family Fun Day: Farmer's Market and a Picnic

Saturday is our "Family Fun Day," which means Mama takes a break from her studies so we can all go on an adventure. This week we road downtown to the Farmer's Market in the Roanoke Square. The first stop: the homemade ice cream stand. We couldn't avoid it, really, since the ice cream man was just taking the lid off his giant ice cream machine and handing out free tasters of this beautiful ice cream with Virginia cherries mixed in it.

This was a special occasion because we let Miss Meilani have her very first taste of real ice cream. She was hooked in a second. Good thing the taster spoons were small and there were lots of other fun diversions at the market. This is more than a produce farmer's market. They also sell homemade arts and crafts, soaps, lotions and jewelry. We picked out some yummy tomatoes, peppers, peaches, apples and squash and then checked out some of the other cool stuff.

Meilani found this cool stuffed dog that looked so realistic she just had to give a hug. He was almost as big as her. She also enjoyed a little gardening shop full of organic seeds with fun tools and baskets.

After the market, we headed over to our fave grocery store, Ukrops, where they were having a 1-year anniversary celebration. The birthday party included lots of samples like make-your-own trail mix, sushi and turkey roll wraps. Ericlee got to go in the money room - a plastic little closet with real money and coupons flying around. You had to grab as much as you could out of the air during your allotted time. He came away with a handful of coupons for the store and five crisp one dollar bills. Not too bad.

We finished up our Saturday with a picnic dinner down by the reservoir with our friends, Mary-Liz and Heidi. Our potluck was a pesto pasta, bruschetta, salad with jicama and orange, zucchini cake and lemon squares. What a feast! We indulged the peace and quiet of the water and beautiful landscape.