The strawberries came in early this year. We made our annual trip out with our friends to pick a few buckets full. With kids in school now, we went out in the late afternoon. While it could have been super hot, there was a nice breeze and the humidity was low, so the day was perfect. This year was the easiest hunt for our family. We had boots to take away the problems of the mud, the girls were able to pick a full bucket themselves, they were busy with friends while they worked, and we came home with plenty of red sweet snacks.

Our friends – only missing one trooper

This is how to pick strawberries – find a good spot, be willing to climb into the plants to find good ones, and hang with a friend.

Mama made strawberry milkshakes from the last of our summer strawberries as an evening treat. The girls were playing after a bath and when Julia heard the blender running she came to investigate. “Wha dat?” and “For Me?” were her first questions. She talked non-stop for a while trying to figure out what all the noise was for. She seemed to have an opinion about everything including what cup she wanted to drink from. Who knew that all we had to do to get her to talk was to make milkshakes? They were yummy!

After a morning of strawberry picking the best way to spend the evening is to make jam. The only problem is that I don’t know how to make jam. So, Tracy offered to teach a jam making lesson and we turned it into a girls night out. I can’t imagine a better way to make jam than to hang out with friends and all share the work and rewards! Looking forward to eating the rewards soon!

Thanks friends for the fun time and help making the jam! (Heather would be in the photo, except someone had to take the photo)

We went strawberry picking with our friends. The morning started out looking stormy, but when we got there it turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day. We joined Ashley, Elena, Maeve, Ariaun, Aiden, Tracy, and Brown for our hunt for red fruity gems. We all left with plenty of great strawberries!

The field was very easy to pick because the plants were elevated and the mounds tarped, but it had a bit of mud along the rows that we had to get around. By the time we were done, the kids were covered in mud and strawberry juice. They seems pretty happy about it.

The big girls picked with Tracy. I’m not sure how much they actually picked, but they seemed to have fun. They also enjoyed hanging out with Brown. He was awesome with the girls! Tracy was very sweet to carry each of the girls over one large mud hole.

The other kids moved between the rows with the other mamas. When they were ready to switch places we picked them up and passed them over the plants. Aiden made himself comfortable with any of the girls or mamas.

Julia started eating strawberries as soon as we got to the strawberry plants. It was like strawberry heaven for her. I wasn’t sure if she was capable of picking a strawberry and putting it in the basket without it going into her mouth. After a while, Julia discovered the dirt path and that she could just play in the dirt. She was one happy girl.

We spent a beautiful hour out picking strawberries with some friends and their girls. It is nice to be out with people that Emily is familiar with; so that, she is so much more bold. She also wants to be like the other girls so she generally acts better and tries new things to be like them too. I think she had a lot of fun, she didn’t have any inhibitions about picking the red strawberries straight from the plants on the ground. No lesson on how to pick was necessary. I might need to check over the ones we picked to see if we have any overly ripe ones.

Emily picked strawberries, visited with the different mamas, hung out with the girls, fell down and required comfort, played in the dirt, found mud, played with Julia, snuck snacks from Elena’s lunch, and sampled Mommy’s strawberry fried pie. I call that a successful outing! It is hard to take photos, herd kids, pick strawberries, and get great photos. So, I have no photos of Julia because she hung out in our front pack and no great individual photos of Emily. But we had fun and enough photos to help us remember it by.