bring your parka - it's strawberry season

on tuesday cole and i took an eagerly anticipated trip out to our favourite strawberry-picking farm.  we go there many times each summer, picking whatever is in season.  it's a bit of a drive, but their berries are fantastic and they have turned themselves into quite the a-rama kind of operation over the years.

all weekend i'd looked forward to it.  the farm opened on monday but we had plans, so tuesday loomed large - delicious berries on the horizon.  yes, i do get excited for picking fruit.  of course, on tuesday morning the sky was heavy, gloomy and overcast.  the weather report (which i don't listen or pay attention to unless i'm hoping it will secretly tell me what i'm seeing out the window isn't true) forecast a 70% chance of rain and stepping out onto our patio told me it was definitely not warm.  but, strawberries were a-calling and i do love me some fresh fruit.  i figured that if worst came to worst (had look that phrase up - it looks wrong when you analyze it) we could always just pay for pre-picked berries and at least we would have some yummy fruit to eat.

we barreled down the highway and as we got off at our exit and meandered down back roads it started to pour. buckets of very cold, very wet rain.  ah well, fine - so be it.  but of course, i figured that i couldn't let the fun of berry picking - not to mention the better value - pass me by.  by the time we had reached the farm the rain had let up to a light drizzle and we donned our hoods and brought out our wagon.

it retrospect, two things.  i would have left our wagon at home.  i knew the berry farm had wagons - why did i bring ours?  do i like washing mud off things?  and that brings me to my second point: dressing appropriately for the situation.  i had dressed cole warmly in layers and put him in rubber boots.  why did i wear a plain hoodie and flip flops?  ergh.  standing in cold mud in the rain in basically your bare feet is not fun.  

the rest of it, however, was great!  cole had a blast, the rain let up eventually, we ate a few berries and picked two big bowls full in no time at all, we caught three snails and pet the donkey, the much-loved milkshake shack was closed so we shared strawberry shortcake and brought home their homemade strawberry ice cream to make our own.  i think we'll go back in a few days - i like to pick a ton of berries so that we can freeze some (never enough - we always run out by thanksgiving) and make jam.  back to the berry farm, post haste!  next time: eighty six the wagon and bring boots!

chocolately hoppity

so... coco knows about the easter bunny. he loves the easter bunny. on a not-unrelated note, the easter bunny brought candies last night. coco woke up this morning and he was overjoyed to find hidden treats. also, very good at unwrapping. so adorable to watch him scampering about, gathering, searching high and low and squealing while piling them into his little basket. he had only a couple before i put the basket away (it's not easter, i suppose, unless you've had too much chocolate before breakfast) but that was sufficient to keep him bouncing until about 1pm.

just in time for easter!

we've been in our new home for two weeks now and it really feels like one. all of our books are on their shelves, our shoes are in their closets and we just have a few bits and bobs left to sort out. but more importantly - we had to get ready for easter!

santa 2.0

we ventured out again this year to metrotown to visit santa. at the time when i chose that route, i figured it was the "easiest" option, but that was only because i didn't really think about it... after all, it's a skytrain ride, several elevators, the mall for pete's sake and a monster-sized one at that, and then there's the line etc. on the plus side, the mall did have things that i needed to do anyway what with it being christmas and all...

we visited last week, before the ankle biters got out of school. the line wasn't too long - maybe 20 minutes - and we went early so nobody in line seemed on the verge of a teary sugar-high breakdown. cole loved looking at the decorations, peeking on santa while we waited and he was so excited! he was smiling from ear to ear when he got to santa. they snapped photos quickly, which is good, because once santa started asking him all sorts of complicated questions about presents and toys and good boy this and that he began to look a little pensive...

i'm glad we went last week, because we rode out this morning to pick the photos up (ugh, two rides to metrotown? blast!) and the line looked like a disaster. overheard - two kids too old for santa telling their mom "no way - an hour wait? dude, that's 60 minutes!".

we also went to the robson square santa last week. it was a fun experience - they've just opened up the ice rink and they have a little santa's village. for free! (thank you GE corporate overlords and provincal tax dollars). santa photos, crafts and gingerbread and more. we played around outside for a bit and then we walked in and had a lingering santa photo session since no one else was in line and then made a mess with sparkles before heading out.

the photos were handed to us five seconds after taking them - the quality of the print wasn't that great, but it was fast and santa was really nice. for future reference, there is an elevator into ubc (which exits into the square) on the hornby & robson side of the gallery so you don't need to lug a stroller three flights of stairs below street level. i was ok with the gingerbread idea, but the lady operating that area poo-pooed it for a person cole's age. i was more on the "it'll keep us busy for 10 minutes and it's festive and nearly lunch anyway" side of the fence... she really wouldn't have liked our family gingerbread house party:

we did this a few years ago and it was fun. we cheat - it's really graham crackers glued to cardboard boxes using royal icing. but the candy is plenty real - and plentiful too. i wasn't sure how it would work with cole - i mean, bowls full of candy?

i haven't let him eat actual candy yet, but was able to distract him with other treats - dried ginger, raisins and apricots. i'm thinking that next year he won't be so easy to convince, especially with a ransom of candy in front of him...

halloween hoedown

much fun was had on saturday morning, carving the pumpkins we got last week at westham island. the most fun was had, to be honest, during the goo-scooping part. we scooped goo like professional goo-scoopers. cole really enjoyed it and we had a relatively tidy time. but the morning got along and we had plans to head out to langley for some trick-or-treating in gramma & grampa's neck of the candy-stocked woods. so, while cole ate lunch, we took turns doing a lightning-round of pumpkin carving.

and we finally settled on cowboy for cole's halloween costume. it was a tossup between homemade cowboy and last-year's duck, but cowboy got the most votes (in my non-scientific, undocumented, biased, random passing mentions to friends & family...). yee haw:

the costume was a scramble of bits and pieces that turned out really well. on hand we had a hand-me-down plaid flannel shirt that he wears all the time and of course his much-loved cowboy hat. to counter the chill he wore a few sweaters under the shirt - hence the very cowboy-like physique. i have a "mystery drawer" that contains interesting toys and whatnot that i find at random regular intervals. once in a while i grab something fun from the drawer - this time i hauled out a sheriff badge and a six-pack of various stick-on mustaches from the japanese dollar store (it's quite a drawer!). on friday we stopped by the granville island toy store on main because i randomly remembered that they had the horse-on-a-stick toy that would be really perfect, and hey, at least it's a waste of money that turns into long-term entertainment! the horse needed 2aa batteries to make a very authentic clip-clop sound, so i took those from our remote (and used the tv manually - oh, the horror!) oh, and i found a potato gun because apparently i'm promoting violence? (not really - just really into accessories!) and last but not least, i made cole a cowboy-style drooling kerchief late on friday night and then gussied up a pair of brown courdoroy pants by temporarily basting a strip of fringe-cut fleece onto each leg. fancy!

we had a great night, playing outside and, when it got dark enough, trick-or-treating with the lovely folks next door. their little guy james was the cutest frog! the boys really got the hang of it after a couple of houses. mmm... "cole" is really going to enjoy that candy! ;-)

happy easter!

cole thoroughly enjoyed collecting eggs after his first visit from the easter bunny! he notices anything new in the house so the moment we brought him out of his room he spotted the basket and a shiny foiled chocolate bunny. and he scampered about collecting the various plastic eggs the easter bunny had scattered around his play area. i love wondering what he was thinking... "hey - new stuff all over the place. what on earth? why are they taking photos again?"

he had a blast shaking the plastic eggs (lucky for cole they were taped shut and lucky for us, they're filled with chocolates for mama and daddy!), gnawing at the bunny, who developed a hole in the foil rather quickly and was shelved, and then toting his basket around the house. fun!