Last Friday evening we took our girls to Disney World to get Dole Whip and watch the fireworks. You need to know we have never actually done this with them. Although we have season passes for the first time since we moved to Central Florida (11 years ago) we usually plan a whole day at the parks. But we thought we’d be spontaneous.

Apparently about 1 million others felt the same way. In fact, as we were told while we were there this was one of their busiest night of the year.

But guess what? We survived. It was fun. Our girls had a blast. And we did not over-stress about the ginormous crowd.

This is what I’m hoping for this summer.

• A plan.
• Memory making.
• Low stress.

See, we have maybe 4 summers left with life as we know it, God willing. Our oldest starts her freshman year next fall. I want to soak up this summer as much as I can. Plus, our spring has been hard. So very hard, and what we really need is a good old fashioned lazy summer.

We are planning on a few beach days.

I’m reading this to aloud to my girls.

I’m going to make several blackberry pies.

Our bucket list is made—so we can have goals like “Play HedBanz” and go get “Italian Ice”.

We will take at least one road trip.

And before we know it August will sneak up on us and we will wonder why 100 days goes so quickly.

xo,

Stacey

My summer gift to you is this recipe. I have searched for years to find the best combination of sweet and tart. Since I do not have fresh berries from the hills of Indiana anymore, this is the best I can do! Plus with frozen berries you can enjoy anytime!
My husbands’s favorite Blackberry Pie:

Pie Crust:

1 1/2 cups of flour

1/2 tsp of salt

2 TBLS sugar

1/2 cup oil mixed with 2 TBLS milk

Mix by hand. Easy as . . . pie.

Not a pre-bake crust!  But you can eat it right out of the bowl – think yummy sugar cookie. Press into a glass pie plate.

Filling:

4 cups of Frozen Blackberries

1/2 cup of white sugar

1/2 cup of all purpose flour

Combine 3 1/2 cups of berries with flour and sugar. Spoon into unbaked pie crust. Spread remaining 1/2 cup of berries on pie.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.

Bake at 375 for 15-20 more minutes until the filling bubbles and the crust is golden brown.

Please eat with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Want to join the Mothers of Daughters Summer Block Party? You can right here: