A little of this and a little of that

We have been pretty busy around here lately with knocked out teeth and broken bones, but we have been having some fun and enjoying our "summer" too!

Last week the Bugs and I were able to enjoy a day on the beach with some of our good friends.  The weather wasn't very nice, but it didn't rain (much) on us and it wasn't (too) windy. The kids were hilarious because they actually shed clothing the longer they stayed on the beach!  They started out in swim shorts, rash guard tops and fleece jackets and ended up just down to their swim gear (after first soaking their jackets in the ocean, naturally.)  The kids spent the better part of the day digging in the sand, rolling in the surf and battling with stick-swords outside of drift-wood forts and us moms spent the better part of our day chasing after runaway toddlers, stripping and re-dressing wet, cold kiddos and rescuing beach toys that were stolen by the waves. By the time we called it a day, the kids were thoroughly worn out and the Bugs and I were able to grab a quick dinner at Mo's Chowder House before driving back home.  I tried their shrimp special and it was really good!  popcorn shrimp, prawns and grilled shrimp skewers!  It was more than I could eat so each of the Bugs had their first shrimp-experience as well (they liked it!)

We also went strawberry picking a couple of times!  The Bugs were really into it the first trip out.  They listened attentively and then spent the entire trip crouched down, inspecting strawberries, finding fully ripe berries, carefully twisting them off the plant and adding them to the bucket.  I was actually pretty impressed! Baby-Bug started out doing okay as well, but quickly began stuffing the strawberries into his mouth instead (stem and all)  Since we wasn't be very discriminate about the ripeness of the berries he was eating (some green....some smushy - yuck!) He ended up riding on my back in the carrier instead.  Let me just say squatting down to pick berries with a 30 pound kid on your back is quite a work out!!  The second berry picking trip was not so smooth, which is ironic because the farm had a fantastic organizational system in place.  They assign you to a row of berries, then you walk all the way down the row until you come to a flag staked in the ground.  You start to pick at the flag and you bring it down the row with you as you progress.  This way each group that comes to the field has an easy time finding berries and doesn't have to scrounge through picked over bushes (very smart!) Unfortunately, the kids decided they would rather sword fight with the flags than pick berries, so I picked as fast as I could, filled our bucket and got the heck out of there!  We picked up a box of freshly made strawberry scones and I grabbed a coffee from the farm stand and we all sat in the back of the car munching on goodies while we waited for our friends who were actually interested in picking berries :)  I think we are going to try blueberry picking next, I am hoping this will be more successful because it will be new and because there is no squatting involved ;-)

We also took a family trip the the beach this month.  I had to work during the early part of the day, so we packed the car and headed west for an evening of hot dog roasting and beachy fun!  It was a relaxing time, Big-Bug realized for the first time that it is actually fun to splash in the water and we couldn't keep him out of the surf after that discovery.  Baby-Bug learned to open the cooler by himself and was in heaven helping himself to carrots and bottled water and Middle-Bug.....well, Middle-Bug broke his arm on a log.  But he was having a ton of fun right before it happened!