Blueberries and Swedish Fish

Heading into this weekend, we were at a loss of what to do. We wanted to go blueberry picking, since it's now blueberry season here. And we also wanted to go to IKEA in Charlotte because we had a good amount of stuff we wanted to return. These two activities seemed at odds with each other, until *lightbulb!* we could combine them by finding a blueberry picking spot near Charlotte. And so we had a day trip to the Charlotte area, and all was good.

The day trip worked out fabulously. The drives weren't too long (2 hrs at the most), the blueberry farm I found was lovely, and IKEA let us return everything we wanted to. The girls seemed to have a blast on the blueberry farm. Hayden jumped right in and was very industrious picking berries. She filled her bucket at least half way - almost as much as Jason! Eliza decided she needed to act out 'Blueberries for Sal'. She put about 20 blueberries in her bucket. I picked out about 7 that were too green. Then she ate the rest. She then spent the rest of the time picking - but putting them straight into her mouth! At one point, she would pick on one side of the push, then run quickly and determinedly over to the other side where her bucket was and then eat the berry.Hayden getting started.

Eliza, before she abandoned all pretense of the bucket.

Jason and his blueberry helpers - E is on his other side, you just can't quite see her.

At one point, Eliza decided that maybe it would be better to just pick berries off the ground rather than wasting time with the bush.

Two hard-working blueberry pickers. They both brought home lots of blueberries - in a bucket and in a belly!

After we were done picking, 45 min in or so, the farm's owner asked us if the girls would like to see the chickens. Hayden said yes, so we walked over to their little chicken coop and fed the chickens some long grass. There was a cute little rooster who cock-a-doodled several times, both startling and delighting the girls.

Feeding the chickens. Hayden was much less afraid than on her class field trip. I think the fence helped.

the chickens

the cute little rooster (sorry he's a bit fuzzy)

We found our way to IKEA, grabbed some lunch, did some shopping while H tried out the kid play area, and then had a quick frozen yogurt break before heading out. Hayden said she wouldn't fall asleep; Eliza was asleep within seconds. About an hour in, Hayden was out too. A long day, but very productive (2 gallons of blueberries, stuff returned to IKEA, Swedish fish), and even lots of fun too! It's too bad IKEA isn't closer because it is SUCH a kid friendly place (children's supervised play space, aisles to run around, frozen yogurt cones for 99 cents, family bathrooms, etc).

Our blueberry haul.
We're eaten them straight, frozen them, had them in cereal and made blueberry-peach cobbler. I think there's blueberry-peach bread in our future if the peaches will ripen!