Family Fun in the Summertime

So, I’m all packed up and I went up to my mom’s to drop my kids off before Nationals. The sugar levels are at an all-time high. On the bright side, we’ve done some fun family activities. I took my son to the Smithsonian Museum, thinking that he would love the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. While he enjoyed them, his all-time favorite museum was the Air & Space Museum. I took them down to that end, intending to stop there for lunch, but once he saw the rockets and airplanes, he had found his own personal Mecca.

My daughter humored us by tolerating the museums, but at the end of the trip she wanted only one thing: to ride the Merry-Go-Round. I let her, because after all, museums aren’t that much fun for a three-year-old. It was the highlight of her trip.

Today we went berry-picking. My mother and I used to go blackberry picking at a field near our old house in Virginia. Every July we’d bathe ourselves in Deep Woods Off bug spray, gather up baskets, and pick for hours. The wild blackberries aren’t as large as the farm berries, but they were free, and we spent many happy hours talking and picking. Then, of course, we’d bake homemade blackberry pies. I grew up baking pies, and my favorite is probably peach pie. Mmmm…

Anyway, we went to a Pick-Your-Own farm this morning. They had peaches and blackberries in season, so I knew there would be pies in our future. Turned out the peaches weren’t as ripe as we’d thought, but we picked about 10 pounds worth and we’ll just let them ripen over the next few days. My son started out enjoying himself and then the gnats started swarming. At this point, he pulled a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, transforming from a happy five-year-old into a victim from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. He was screaming, clawing at his face, and sobbing. Yes, family quality time indeed. I tried to calm him down and have him walk away from the bugs, but the child was in hysterics and could only be calmed down with a popsicle at the general store. My daughter eyed him as if he were an alien from another planet. Sigh. I still wanted my blackberry pie, so I let him cool off in the store with my mom while I took my daughter out berry picking. We had so much fun. She delighted in finding the lower berries, exclaiming, “Look, Mommy, I FOUND ONE!” After picking six pounds of berries, my son finally joined us with much gnashing of teeth and wailing about the bugs.

Did you ever go berry picking or orchard picking as a child? What experiences do you remember?