Berry Adventure

Hello again blog world. How I’ve missed you! It’s been sometime since my last post and I wish I could say it was for a better reason other than a very nasty cold/flu bug made it’s way slowly through our entire family for the month of June. Not a great way to start the summer at all.

Blueberry picking. Blueberry picking is a great way to start the summer. The season was almost over so we decided to make the trip up north just outside of Houston for some blueberry picking. It’s my favorite fruit to pick. It takes the kids a long time to fill up their buckets and Austin is perfectly happy to walk around and test the fruit of each tree to be sure they are the best.

This year we had to become one with the tree and really get in there. (Pay no attention to the scraggly haircuts, we’re going for the Bieber look , just kidding).

It was about one million degrees that day. Okay, I’m exaggerating but it was hot enough that we were all very sweaty when our work was done. This is what Austin and Evan thought of the heat,

“not cool Mom, not cool!”

So it’s necessary after a hard hour of picking blueberries to do this,

Watermelon snow cones make everything better. Poor little Evan was so sweaty and holding him was making him even hotter. The snow cone was doing its job to cool me off, I though it would work wonders for him as well. So I gave him his first red dye saturated, sugar loaded, artificial flavored bite of watermelon snow cone. Bad mom, bad mom! And this is what he thought,

“Don’t do that again Mom. Ever.”

I love our adventures together!

We're Going on a Berry Hunt...

So far this year, we've been strawberry and blackberry picking. By far, my favorite fruit to take the kids out for is blueberries! They get a decent size bucket and it takes them FOREVER to fill it up. Unlike strawberries where you fill up a bucket within 15 minutes. And, the blueberry bush doesn't have thorns like the blackberry bush. The other day, Nathan reminded me of how much fun we have whenever we go and we decided to make a trip for some fresh blueberries.

Unfortunately, even by 9am, it was 1 million degrees out and we couldn't take the heat too long. So we didn't end up with enough blueberries to freeze this year (that also could be a result of the fact that Austin didn't add any berries he picked to the bucket, only to his stomach!). But we still made the memories...

Picking Something Other Than Their Noses.

Our dear sweet friends, the Stolz's, invited us to come to what I thought was their backyard blackberry patch. Little did I realize, it was like a miniature forest on the own property complete with trails and surprises. Due to the drought here in Texas, we knew the blackberries would be few and far between but the boys had a blast going on a berry hunt. While blackberries are not as fun to pick as strawberries or blueberries, because of their thorny nature, it was even more rewarding to pick something we had to be so careful instead of careless about.

Jacob enjoyed leading us through the trails to where the "jackpots" were. Nathan was a little concerned about getting lost and Austin was perfectly content following.

For most of our trip, Austin didn't realize what we were doing. Finally he saw that we were picking berries and some how he got the bright idea to try one. After that, it was all over. He might have ate more than we actually picked! Ha.