Last Wednesday we went to Underwood Family Farms in Somis to pick our own blueberries with some of our MOPs friends. Grandma Holly & Grandpa Don were visiting for the day and came with us too which was fun. None of us had ever picked blueberries before. It was easy and fun, although it was extremely hot that day. But we just grabbed a couple of containers and started down the rows of blueberry bushes picking the biggest bluest/purplest berries we could find. Caleb loved eating them right off the bushes, although he couldn’t have too many because we had to pay by the pound at the end. Micah really got into searching and picking; he ended up picking about a cup of them by himself. Mom picked maybe about 3 cups. I don’t remember what the weight was of all our blueberries together. We spent about an hour, maybe a bit less, picking I think.
Then we went back to the market at the front and paid and also bought some strawberries. On the way back up to the market we noticed they had beehives down one of the rows between blueberry bushes. That was interesting to see. Micah stopped and watched the bees (from a distance, of course) for a couple minutes. The lady in the market said their bees are just for cross-pollinating their plants; they don’t make honey. Although they did sell honey in the market. We also bought some honey candy to try for dessert after lunch and it was quite good.
We also enjoyed looking at and feeding the animals there. They had pygmy goats, alpacas, sheep, miniature horses, and chickens. The pygmy goats are fun to watch because they climb up on their shelter and walk around across beams way up in the air. We brought a picnic lunch and ate there before heading home for naptime. It was a really fun experience.
I had hoped picking the berries ourselves would make the boys more likely to eat them, but not so much. Caleb will only eat a couple of the biggest ones at a time. Micah won’t really eat any fresh ones, but he did like eating frozen ones. One of our MOPs friends recommended frozen blueberries as a good snack. Like tiny ice pops. I made some blueberry muffins but the boys didn’t like those either. That’s OK, Mom & Dad did. Today I made blueberry smoothie and Caleb drank quite a bit of that. He called it purple juice. Micah wouldn’t even taste it. There’s still a handful in the freezer. I just used the last of the fresh ones to make pudding popsicles. We’ll see tomorrow how those turn out.
Overall I thought the blueberry picking was a wonderful experience and I would definitely recommend it to others and we will do it again.
Archive for June, 2008
Blueberries!
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008Father’s Day
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
Here are Dad & his boys all dressed for church. I thought Father’s Day was a good occasion to dress the boys up a little extra fancy. I got that cute suit for Caleb at the last clothing swap at church and wanted him to wear it at least once before it gets too hot and he outgrows it. I don’t know if it will still fit him come fall so this was it. Micah’s suit was from a year ago Easter and the sleeves of the shirt really are too short, but he didn’t complain. He really liked the tie, but giggled and squirmed like crazy when I was putting it on and straightening it because he said I was tickling his neck. Caleb didn’t like his tie so I didn’t make him wear it, although he did agree to let me take one picture with it before we took it off.
Our Father’s Day was pretty relaxed. We went to church, picked up lunch on the way home, ate and put the boys down for naps. After naps I set up an ice cream guessing game like I had read about in a magazine since Daddy loves ice cream. I had bought 4 different flavors of ice cream and covered the containers. I served up a small scoop of each flavor to each family member and we all enjoyed tasting each one. Then the guys had to guess what the flavors were. Sam pretty much got them all. Micah got two right I think and Caleb one or two. The flavors were Butter Pecan Praline, Extreme Moose Tracks, Strawberries and Cream, and Peanut Butter Passion. Daddy said his favorite was the Butter Pecan Praline. The rest of us liked Extreme Moose Tracks (chocolate) the best.
Later we all took a walk to the park and played for a while. Then we came home and had tacos (Daddy’s request) for dinner.
Saturday Gymnastics
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
The boys are doing gymnastics classes through the park district again. We did it last September and they loved it, but then we got busy in the fall and started Kimotion in the spring so we hadn’t been back. Now that Kimotion is off for the summer we signed up for gymnastics for June. They still love it. Coach Ryan is great! Caleb does a mommy and me class where mom goes around the circuit with him and helps him at each station as needed. Micah goes on his own and we just watch and encourage him from the side of the room. We were impressed the Micah could hold himself up on the bar like this. Last time Caleb did great forward rolls (somersaults) by himself and especially enjoyed hanging upside down on this bar.
Kauai 2008
Saturday, June 21st, 2008
We spent the week of May 24-31 in Kauai. It was beautiful. Here is one of my favorite pictures from the week. Micah and Caleb enjoying running into the ocean and kicking up splashes. They also liked running away from waves, building sand castles, looking at fish, and swimming at the beach.
We also had fun swimming in the pool at our resort, The Point at Poipu. It has a pool set up kinda like a beach. One side of the pool is lined with sand and has a very gradual slope on the bottom. The boys liked being able to walk in the pool. We got a couple cool pictures of each of them diving from the surface to the bottom of the pool to retrieve toys.
There was a playground at our resort and at the beach park that we played on for a while. We took a short drive to Spouting Horn to see the waves splash and spray up through the blowhole. We went in the afternoon and the sun made cool rainbows in the spray.
We also went to Smith’s Garden Luau which was the best luau we have been to. It was in a beautiful huge garden where you could walk around and see all kinds of tropical plants. Micah & Mommy went for a walk through the garden. Micah’s favorite plant (or at least the one he was excited to tell everyone else about) was the Mickey Mouse plant. He mostly liked the name. The sign said the plant had fruit that was shaped like Mickey’s head and that the fruit turned black. There was no fruit on it when we saw it. Mommy liked the pineapple plants with little baby pineapples starting to grow. The food was pretty good and the hula show was excellent. Caleb loved the Chinese dragon dance and the dances with the girls swinging the poi balls. Micah got a bit freaked out by the volcano fire part of the show. Later on Grandma Holly bought Mommy some souvenir poi balls and the boys had fun swinging them around.
It was great having Grandma Holly and Grandpa Don with us on our trip. The boys enjoyed spending time with them while Mom & Dad went out to eat a couple times and went golfing one afternoon.
Our resort was really nice. We hung out in our suite and played the Wii, read books and magazines, did jigsaw puzzles, played with cars and beach balls, and took naps. They also had koi ponds and we enjoyed going to the fish-feeding times where they brought out food for us to feed the koi and other fish. Caleb loved the fish and wanted to go look at them anytime we passed by the ponds, which was pretty much anytime we walked anywhere within the resort.
We had a great, relaxing trip and we can’t wait to go back to Kauai!