Strawberry Pickin'

Since the only strawberries in Kansas are in the produce section of Dillon's, the boys and I decided to go pickin' while we're still here in North Carolina.  We headed down to Lewis Farms in Wilmington yesterday afternoon and met up with my friend Natalie and her two sons, Benjamin and Noah.  Between the two adults and four boys, we somehow managed to fill up one entire bucket with delicious ripe strawberries.  (Two guesses as to who actually picked.  Here's a hint: no one under four feet tall was any help at all.)

Dan's activity of choice was sprinting up and down the strawberry rows, kicking up as much dirt and dust as humanly possible.  My Ben liked to stand in one spot, picking the leaves off of a berry before popping the whole thing in his mouth.  Natalie's Benjamin got in trouble for eating too many strawberries so he went off and hid at the end of the row, where he proceeded to eat more strawberries.  And Noah doesn't walk yet, so at least he stayed close by.

After paying for our haul, we rewarded ourselves with strawberry ice cream.  This was the only time that all four boys sat down and stayed in one place, of course.  As we were eating, Natalie and I saw a couple of women picking berries with three little girls.  All three were helping and staying close and posing for pictures.  One of the girls even had a spotless white dress on.  We wanted to yell to the women, "Trade you?" but I think they would have taken one look at our dirty, sticky, sweaty crew and run the other direction.