Weekending - July 12, 2019

Oh my goodness - aren't summer weekends just the BEST!  We had great - a little warm, but great - weather this past weekend and Eric and I took full advantage of it.  Here's the low down ~

First I have to say that Friday was a bit sad for me.  My dear friend, Sharyn, lost her father last week and the funeral was Friday morning.  Her dad had been my high school math teacher and I'm sure I'd pushed his buttons more than once!  He was a wonderful father, grandfather and friend to many as was evident by the full church for his memorial service.  The community's lose is heaven's gain.  He will be missed.

Friday night we had tickets to the Muny, which is our outdoor theater in Forest Park.  It was the perfect evening to enjoy a picnic in the park before seeing Cinderella under the stars!  We decided to go super simple and not make a big fuss over the food we packed.  My mom and dad recently visited Wisconsin and picked up our favorite cheese - white cheddar and cherry.  Adding that to a couple slices of hard salami and some crackers and we were set.

This was the Rogers and Hammerstein version of the show and it was cute, but honestly there were a very disappointing moment.  First, the theater was full of adorable little girls dressed in their blue Cinderella dresses.  You could literally hear them gasp when the ugly old lady magically spun around and turned into the Fairy God Mother.  But when Cinderella wore a ballgown that didn't resemble the Cinderella dress she' known for, well my heart broke a little bit.  Some things I just don't think you should mess with and Cinderella's dress is one of them.

Saturday Eric and I wanted to get out and enjoy the day so we headed to Eckert's to pick peaches and blackberries.  We even stopped by their new sunflower maze.

There is a bumper crop of peaches this year at Eckert's.  You can definitely pick until your heart's content!

If picking the peaches yourself isn't your thing, they have plenty in the country store for you to choose from!

As a matter of fact, the country store has about anything in peach flavor you could ever ask for.  It's literally all things peaches ~

The blackberry bushes are loaded with fruit so I hope we can pick again before the season is over.  Not all the berries we picked made it into our baskets.  They were so juicy and sweet!

While we were there, we ran into a blogger friend.  Julie blogs over at Two Blues Fans and it was great chatting with her in real life.

I'll be sharing a recipe I made with those big, juicy blackberries later this week.  Here's a sneak peek ~

For dinner we had reservations at Tony's in Alton.  As I mentioned on Friday, it had been years since we had been there.  It did not disappoint!  The steaks were as good as we remembered them being.

On our way home, we swung by one of our favorite ice cream shops - Dairy Haven.  This is one of those places that is cash only and is closed during the winter.  So you need to soak up as much of their ice cream while you can!

Sunday Eric had to work and I spent a lot of time reading a new book and catching up on email.  Wheh he got home, we ordered pizza and spent the night binge watching a new show called You on Netflix.  Have you seen it?  It's a good one and Eric and I both stayed up way too late watching "just one more" episode.  This dark, romantic drama is rated for mature audiences, so wait until the kids go to bed to check it out.

And that my friends is a wrap up to our weekend.  Hope your week is off to a great start and I'll see you back here soon.