Berry Pickin & Tadpole Collecting

Mike got home from his week in Nashville yesterday so we decided to head out to do a few things today. One stop was at a place called Belvedere Plantation. I've been looking for a place to take the kids to pick strawberries that was fairly close to home. Most of the places I had found were farther than I wanted to go. I knew this place existed but didn't know they grew strawberries there until last week. It's less than 10 miles from our house so off we went to go strawberry picking today. It was a really nice day since it finally decided to stop raining. It's rained so much over the past week. When we got there we got to go on a hayride out to the strawberry field.

Joshua thought that was pretty cool. They gave us each a picking tray, although we gave 3 back. Each tray could hold up to 10 pounds of berries and we certainly don't have a use for 40 pounds! They had several fields and there were PLENTY of berries for everyone. We didn't fill up our tray. We ended up picking about 5 pounds which was plenty for us. I mostly took them for the fun of picking since they've never done it before.

After we finished picking we took another hayride back to the market to pay for what we picked (minus what was eaten in the field). We noticed a pen that had a mama goat and some brand new babies in it. Aren't they cute? This little white one was very social. He wanted to be pet like a little doggie. What a cutie.

We'll have to make sure we go strawberry picking there every season. What fun! We had a really great time. Except for that swarm of bees. Not so much fun. I missed it when I went to pay for our berries, but apparently they passed Mike and Cassie while they were looking at the goats and headed in to the moon bounce where Joshua was jumping. Luckily they left quickly. I'm kinda sorry I missed it. I've never seen a swarm of bees before.

I went with Joshua on his field trip Thursday. All of the kindergarten classes went to a large park that has a big creek out in the woods where they were to go dip netting for creatures. They had a really good time. Joshua's little friend Mason was assigned to stay with Joshua and I for the day. When it was their classes turn to go to the creek they handed me a jar and 2 nets. I knew they were catching stuff but I didn't know they were keeping it. They got a lot of things, mostly tadpoles and a few things with legs. Guess who got to sift through the junk in the nets and scoop out the creatures and put them in the jar. Uh huh. That would be me. So gross! Ick! And yes, that bite I got on my hand from whatever creature is feeling better....geez. Standing in a creek and fishing for gooey things, not my cup of tea. I acted like I was having a ton of fun though. Mostly cause a lot of the other moms didn't..lol. The boys thought I was pretty cool and that's good enough for me. I was muddy and really smelly when I got back but I'm really glad I went. He thought I was just the coolest mom ever and has suggested that I go buy some nets so we can go do it again. They caught a lot of things and were really excited when they got to dump what they caught in the container that was going back to school.