Strawberry Picking

We went and "strawberry picked" this past weekend with our neighbors, and it was a blast!  I have never been strawberry picking before, but when our neighbor mentioned it, it sounded like a great idea.  Nolan loves fruit, and I figured it would give us a fun, family/kid-friendly activity to do.  There are a ton of farms nearby that do this, but we found one in Clayton that was only about 15 minutes from the house.

I could have used a couple more inches on my arm for this one...

 

After the boys napped Saturday, we headed out around 3:00, hoping that we would dodge the rain clouds.  It was a pretty simple process - park, get your bucket, look at the tractors, pick some strawberries, eat a few, then look at the tractors again :)  The boys had so much fun and for a quick 30-45 minute play date it was great!

Nolan was super excited, and RAN the entire way to the field (and back!)

 

The farm was great because they had turkeys on the way to the field, plus a tractor perfectly "positioned" by the road for photo ops.  I honestly think the tractor was the big draw for the boys.

 



 

He was very proud of his bucket, and we only got a few green ones in there :)
 

I actually had never thought about how strawberries were grown, so this was a neat way to learn and show Nolan how we get our food.  He already sees the tractors in the fields near us, and says that's who helps us grow our food, but it was important to let him see how to pick (and eat) the fresh stuff!  He did pretty good - he only ate about 3 before we paid for them :)
 



This rotated and I can't fix it!
 

We passed by one more tractor on the way back, and the boys needed another photo.

 

This one cracks me up - they are too cute!

 

We got a little over half a bucket for only $8, so I think it was a success!  Right as we were driving out of the driveway, the bottom opened up, so it was also perfect timing with the rain.  I think we will make this at least an annual tradition for sure!  Now, onto some good strawberry dessert ideas...

Mother/Daughter + Father/Son Weekend!

My mom invited me to go with her to Asheville this past weekend to scope out a hotel she wants to use for a retreat, and since I hadn't had a vacation in a looong time, of course I jumped on the chance!  Even better was that Anthony had been working out of town for the past three weeks, so he was more than happy to have some good quality time with Nolan.

Turns out, I had already requested PTO from work for Thursday and Friday, so we were able to leave Friday afternoon.  We headed to Concord to visit with Granny (and to break up our drive).  We were able to spend some nice time with Granny Friday evening, and then had the best time for dinner with Aunt Ann and Aunt Mo.  It was like an awesome girls night: complete with drinks and lots of laughing!

We took Granny out to breakfast Saturday morning before heading out to Asheville, and it was so nice to visit with her.  I am sure next time she would prefer that I bring Nolan (and I will!)

The drive to Asheville wasn't that bad, only about 3 hours or so.  We finally found a place to park and walked around for a little while before grabbing a bite to eat.  Our main goal was to work on my mom's new business plan, and we got a ton accomplished in all of our car rides.

Since the "inn" where we were staying did not serve food, we stopped at a grocery store on the way out of town to do some work on the computer (thank you, Starbucks wi-fi!), and to get some much needed essentials (i.e., frozen pizza for dinner and beer - ha).

Our hotel was pretty off the beaten path, and I was in heaven.  We passed by so many farms I was just jealous and wanted to live in one of them!  The area was beautiful.  It took us about 30 minutes of winding roads to make it to our hotel, and it was very serene.  The place was a bit "crunchy" for me, (as per Asheville), but was super clean and very beautiful.  We spent a lot of time walking around and trying to get some more pictures for my mom's website.

 

Trust me when I say she was the ONLY one there wearing makeup and hairspray - ha!

 

 

And while Mom's away, the boys will play!  Anthony had Friday off too, so he and Nolan headed out to a movie right when Mom and I left.  Apparently, they had a great time and Nolan made it through his first whole movie!

 

 

His mouth full of popcorn just cracks me up.  Later that night, Anthony had planned to cook some crab legs, which was Nolan's first time trying them.  It sounds like he liked them, although I am not sure how much he ate :)

 

 

And speaking of eating, Saturday they went to a farm in Zebulon that had a ton of donkeys.  Apparently, the owner wrote a book about donkeys and so she opened up her farm for free for people to come and learn about them!  Anthony said it was fantastic and they had tons of free food, crafts, and of course, lots of carrots with which to feed the donkeys :)  Between Nolan and Juliette they must have had some stuffed donkeys!

 

Saturday evening he met Stacie and Louie again for a quick turn at the free concert near our house, and then joined our neighbors for dinner.  He said they had a great time, and Nolan even got to sit inside a fire truck for the first time!  He was a little intimidated at first, but warmed up as soon as this HUGE fireman picked him up and showed him the ropes.

 

 

We all had such a great weekend, but we were happy to be back together come Sunday!  I missed my boys too much, but was so happy to have some good quality time with my mom.  Hopefully, we will have lots more weekends like this to come!

 

World's largest strawberry!



 



My Heart

The Pleasures of Having a 2-Year Old!

Sometimes, you just have to laugh (and be VERY thankful that you have a super handy husband!)  I came across this picture the other day, and remembered that I had forgotten to post about it!

Back over MLK weekend, Anthony and Cade were out working so Nolan helped me switch out my closet with summer/winter things.  We had a great time, and Nolan was very "helpful." :)

While I was in the middle of a huge pile of clothes, he played in the closet with the coat hangers.  I didn't think too much of it when he came to me and told me that he broke one of the plastic hangers.  No big deal; I said to go to his bathroom right across the hall and throw it away in his trash can.  Now, let's be perfectly clear - he KNOWS what his trash can is!

I let him go do that and went back to my clothes.  Two seconds later, I heard the toilet flush and the ball dropped - Noooo!!! I said!  Did you flush it?!  I ran in but it was too late - the hooked part of the clothes hanger was long gone.  Problem was, I knew it wouldn't go all the way down, so we couldn't use that toilet anymore until Anthony had a free day to work on it (great timing when you are trying to introduce potty training...)

Finally, Anthony had the time to see if he could get it out, and this was the picture I got at work...bless his heart - it took him ALL day, but he did it! :)

 

You will notice there is NO toilet attached to the floor anymore, and it's in a million pieces!  Thankfully, it didn't go further down, but I learned the valuable lesson to NEVER let your toddler anywhere near the toilet without watching...ha!