Our experience the past month and a half of Open Houses and constant showings has taught us a lot about simplifying meal prep so that we can eat something healthy (or just anything edible, really) without spending a huge amount of time cleaning up, keeping the house in show-condition and getting out of the house quickly with the kids and dog in tow, sometimes for just a quick walk around the block, and others for three-hour chunks of time. We are beginning to become experts!

We are back in escrow again, and hopefully this buyer will work out, but if nothing else, one of the silver linings has been that we’ve had the opportunity to spend a huge amount of family time together the past month. Whereas normally we might have filled our weekends by dividing and conquering, splitting up the kids and doing errands, or working on projects at home, we’ve been forced to plan on being out of the house together. ALL. THE. TIME.

Sunday Open Houses have been the easiest, since Jake can take the twins to church, while I stay home with Meredith during her nap and clean the house/get everything ready. As soon as he gets home, we do a quick change out of church clothes, go out for a picnic and then fill the rest of the time with other activities, or in some cases, drive around, hoping the kids fall asleep for their nap!

One of our Open House outings entailed going strawberry picking at South Coast Farms in San Juan Capistrano. If all else fails, the girls can definitely fall back on a career in farm work as they loved being day laborers for the morning. Having worked on his brother-in-law’s farms in Washington every summer growing up as a teen, Jake had a lot to tell the girls about the farm equipment and crops, which was all fascinating to these city girls.

Meredith didn’t understand why she was picking her own lunch, instead of it being handed to her on a golden platter.

The girls have perfected the “twist and snap” method of strawberry picking and were very careful about only picking the brightest, juiciest ones.

Samantha inspects a strawberry with a small amount of green to decide whether or not it will make the cut.

Two years ago, we went strawberry picking with a bunch of friends at Tanaka and had a blast there as well. I remember thinking back then how grown up the girls seemed at the time, but looking back, I can’t believe how much of little babies they and all their friends were!

Samantha’s strawberry face!

Last year, we tried out South Coast Farms with the Smith Family. The girls look so little here too, and Meredith was just a tiny babe who spent the afternoon snoozing in the Ergo.

Back to 2017, the girls were great about helping Meredith find strawberries for her basket. She gave up on the whole thing after about five minutes and tried to escape through the rows of strawberries.

Farmer Samantha.

Farmer Amelia.

How do you work this thing?

After all that hard work in the sun, the girls were famished and wolfed down lunch at Ellie’s Table. Meredith stole my gluten-free quiche and savored every bite.

Since there were still potential buyers at our house, we made one more stop at Casper’s Wilderness Park. Meredith hung out at the playground and chased squirrels with her buddy, Bandit, while the twins splashed and threw rocks into the stream.  Another successful family outing!

Lots of love,