Going to pick-your-own farms is one of my favorite family activities.  We always make a point of going apple-picking in the fall and visiting a pumpkin patch just before Halloween, but this year I also wanted to do some berry picking.  I used to pick strawberries and blueberries with my grandparents, and I think it’s such a fun family summer activity.  This year, Peanut was big enough that I felt she would actually enjoy it, and a new summer tradition is born.

We went to Awald Farms in North Collins, NY.  I did some research before choosing a place and was impressed with Awald’s website and with their selection of U-pick options.  We’d missed strawberry season, sadly, but Awald currently has available blueberries and multiple varieties of raspberries.  They also have a farm store and a nursery.  I didn’t get any pictures of the nursery, but it was huge and the plants looked beautiful – I think I may be coming here to stock my garden next spring.  But that’s beside the point.  Basically, I was really, really impressed with Awald’s operation and we will definitely be back.

My fellow pickers: Peanut, Nana, and Nugget.  (Well, Nugget didn’t pick – he was actually kind of a liability, albeit an adorable one.)  No Daddy, sadly – he was out of town attending to some family business.  But we had such a great time that I think we’ll try to go again before the end of the season, so that he can get in on the fun too.

We brought Peanut’s little sand pail and they weighed it so that she could have the fun of using her own bucket – so nice and accommodating!  Peanut was all business.

She didn’t quite understand that the green berries weren’t ripe yet, and we spent a lot of time trying to dissuade her from chowing down on unripe fruit.  But she had a ball picking and she actually did quite well with putting most of the berries in her bucket and not in her mouth.

Of course, a good number of berries found their way into her tummy before the morning was over.  Prior to entering the fields, I asked one of the employees what the policy is on eating directly from the bush.  I explained that while I would do my best to control my child, she is a toddler, and I expected that she would be trying to eat berries from the bushes, and I asked if they had a way for me to pay for what she ate from the bush.  The friendly employees assured me that it was okay if Peanut ate some blueberries, that everyone did it, and that they didn’t expect me to prevent a two-year-old from eating in the field.  Big sigh of relief.

Nugget didn’t love blueberry picking.  He insisted on being walked up and down the rows until he fell asleep (eventually).  Nana took one for the team and did most of the Nugget-wrangling so I could enjoy picking with Peanut.  Wasn’t that nice of her?

After we had filled our buckets, we sat down in the grass and enjoyed a few more bites of blueberries before it was time to head home for lunch and nap.

Some of us were more exhausted than others…

But a good time was had by all.

What a fun way to spend a morning!  I kept on shouting things like “This is so much fun!” and “Oh, I LOVE this!”  I knew I was a broken record, but I just couldn’t help myself – it was such a wonderful morning.  I think blueberry picking is going to become one of our must-do summer activities (and hopefully strawberry picking, too, and raspberry picking when the kids are a bit older – they’re still too small to negotiate the brambles).  I mean, seriously, is there a better way to spend a sun-drenched summer morning than surrounded by sweet, beautiful berries?

No, there isn’t.

Do you enjoy berry picking, too?  Did you make it out for strawberry season, or did you miss it like we did?

Taste of Buffalo!  It’s one of the premier events of the summer around here (we went last year and had a blast) when local restaurants, food trucks and wineries congregate in downtown Buffalo and we get to sample all kinds of delicious treats.  Last year, we went in with a plan and did three loops – one to check out the scene, one for savory sampling, and one for sweet.  This year, with a two-year-old and a baby, we knew that was not going to be possible.  So our goal was to make one loop through, tasting savory on our way up Delaware and sweet on our way back down, and be home in time for afternoon nap.  It was a challenge, but we were up to it.

Our first stop, OF COURSE, was Lloyd’s Taco Truck.  I love Lloyd’s!  The tacos are magnificent, and it’s up there with my favorite DC food trucks as far as quality of food goes.  (I’m not sure there’s a food truck in the world that could replace the DC lobster truck in my heart, but Lloyd’s comes close.)

Hubby and I split a chicken taco, and I got my own half order of krazy korn.  Dudes.  This corn.  Is.  Amazing.  Charred corn on the cob seasoned with chile sauce and liberally sprinkled with cheese, doused with crema, and finished with cilantro.  Does it get better?  I made it clear that the krazy korn was MINE and if anyone else wanted some they would have to GET THEIR OWN.

Look who else was enjoying the Lloyd’s bounty!  Nana was in town for the weekend to visit with the tinies and provide extra hands while hubby was away (he left town for a few days to attend to some family business; he’s back now).  She tried a beef taco and said it was delicious.

From Lloyd’s we wandered around the circle, tasting as we went.  We tried the Buffalo mac ‘n cheese from 716 Food and Sport (a newcomer to the scene, and we have to check out the restaurant!) – verdict: good but spicy.  And we stopped by Ebenezer Ale House for Bavarian pretzels.  Peanut was all over that.

I did my homework before the Taste, and I knew I wanted to hit Osteria 166 as well.  This is one of my favorite downtown restaurants, and I especially love their salads.  (I don’t know what they put in them that’s so good, but they’re seriously addictive.  And if you think I’m exaggerating because salads can’t possibly be addictive, well, you haven’t had these.)

They also were serving meatballs and risotto sticks, but obviously I went for the arugula salad.  It was incredible.  So fresh and flavorful.  I fed hubby bites of arugula and he enjoyed it too, although I don’t think he loved it quite as much as I did.  I was practically weeping, it was so delicious.

And my other must-stop: Merge.  Another favorite downtown restaurant, Merge specializes mainly in really, really good vegetarian food.  (There’s a little bit of poultry and seafood on their menu, but it’s mostly vegetarian or vegan.  We love it.)  I was actually still pretty hungry by the time we got to Merge, because Nana and hubby were tasting a lot of beef and pork dishes, which I don’t eat.  So I took advantage of the opportunity to fill my tummy a bit and ordered two dishes:

Seitan barbeque wings, which were good, and…

Bean curd tostada, which was phenomenal.  I could have eaten three more.  On the way back we stopped for Charlap’s ice cream and Paula’s donuts – no pictures, but both were delish.  All in all, a successful Taste this year.  Some good vegetarian food, an Osteria 166 salad, and Lloyd’s – how can you go wrong?

Does your city have a local tasting event?  Is it a must-attend on your summer calendar, too?

Let’s have a show of hands: who here is absolutely done, over it, with this endless winter?  ((raises hand))

I generally don’t mind winter.  I like outdoor winter sports – skiing, ice skating – and I think snow is pretty, and there is absolutely a place for cozy days spent curled up under a blanket with a good book and a cup of tea.  I’m usually not tired of winter until March, when what I call “ugly winter” takes over – you know, the stretch of days when there’s no more fresh snow to cover the dirty piles by the side of the road and the sky is just grey for days and days.  But this winter started too early – “Snowvember” feels like it was ages ago now – and I’m tired of fighting through the ice to get to work every day, tired of the slushy sidewalks, and especially tired of the biting cold.  For the past few weeks it’s actually been too cold to leave the house – other than to go to work and school, which we have to do.  But all weekend outings were suspended until the temperatures were at least in the positive degrees.  It hasn’t made for much of a fun life lately, I can tell you.

This weekend, though, was a marked improvement over what we’ve had recently.  The temperatures were in the twenties, which felt downright balmy compared to the frigid -30 RealFeel temps we’d been experiencing.  So we took advantage of the warmer weather and got out of the house twice over the weekend!  Look at us go!  On Sunday we actually got out for a hike – more about that coming later this week – but first things first: on Saturday we visited one of our winter happy places, the Buffalo Botanical Gardens.

If you were reading last year, you may remember that we went to the Botanical Gardens several times and Peanut developed a deep and abiding love for the koi pond.  We didn’t go over the summer and fall because the weather was nice enough to allow for more outdoor activities, so we saved the Botanical Gardens for the colder months, when we knew we would desperately need those hours of warmth and green.  Daddy took Peanut there on New Year’s Eve and they had a marvelous time – I didn’t get to go, because I was working.  Daddy reported that Peanut was initially a bit apprehensive about her old BFFs in the koi pond, but she warmed up to them quickly.

This time, she warmed up even faster.  In fact, she basically charged past the reception desk shouting “Fishies!  See the fishies!” while I tried to restrain her long enough for hubby to purchase a family membership for the year.  (We’re apparently on a membership-buying kick.)  We barely got her coat off before she was rocketing through the palm court on her way to visit her aquatic besties.

I’d say she was pretty excited.  The dimple was out in full force and she was practically hyperventilating with glee at seeing these fellas again.

The koi room is the place to be if you are a toddler at the Botanical Gardens.  Not only is there a POND with FISH, but there’s a wooden bridge and a set of stairs that seems to attract every toddler in the place.  Peanut made a new friend her age and the two of them walked the bridge and stairs for a good twenty minutes, which is an eternity in toddlerdom.

Walking the bridge and stairs was a favorite activity last year, too.  It’s nice to see that some things don’t change all that quickly!

(Well, what did change was Peanut’s competence at the activity.  She’s getting really good at stairs.)

After almost half an hour spent in the koi room – between bridge/stair walking and fish watching – we decided it was time to move on and see some of the other sights.  Peanut was filled with baby rage at being dragged away from her beloved pond and bridge, but she quickly got over her fury when she met this guy:

There were paper dragons hanging all throughout one of the greenhouses, in celebration of the Chinese New Year.  Peanut enjoyed exploring the dragon from her safe spot in Daddy’s arms.  She only ripped one of the dragons’ beards off.

Then it was time to move on again.  We quickly herded Peanut through the desert room – it’s one of my favorite greenhouses, but there are too many prickly things to allow a toddler to loiter there – and on to the Wegmans Family Garden.  It happened to be Family Day at the Botanical Gardens and there were volunteers set up at tables throughout the greenhouses with various activities for the little ones.  We begged off making a strawberry with crepe paper and glue because I had visions of crepe paper glued to Peanut, and Peanut wasn’t interested in making rubber stamps out of fruit.  But she did make and then taste some fresh squeezed orange juice, which was delicious.

Most of the time spent in the Family Garden, though, was devoted to reading books…

And playing in the sandbox.  Peanut is crazy for this sandbox and loves to test out the toys.  She kept her feet on the ground at first, but when another little girl climbed in, Peanut clambered in after her (while I cringed and wondered how much of the sandbox would be coming home with us).

Ah, well, sometimes Mom just needs to relax and let go of worrying about things like sand in the car.  They’re only little once, right?  Plus, it will be good practice for the beach this summer.

Peanut had a ball, anyway.  As did we all.  It was refreshing to wander through the greenhouses, breathing in the scents of the flowers and enjoying the warmth and the abundant greenery.  You can almost forget that it’s below freezing outside.  I think we’ll be back a few more times before spring.

Do you have Botanical Gardens in your city?  What is your favorite winter survival trick?

This is how we science!

For one of hubby’s Christmas gifts from Peanut and me, I decided to buy a family membership to the Buffalo Museum of Science.  I think experience gifts can be some of the most fun – hubby and I don’t always do them, but when we do we really enjoy them.  Still, it had never occurred to me to buy a membership to any museum or organization as a gift, for some reason.  When we lived in Alexandria, Virginia we had an annual membership to Mount Vernon, but we just bought that on our first visit.  And we’d been talking about getting a membership to the Buffalo Botanical Gardens but hadn’t gotten around to it.  We love the Botanical Gardens and we go plenty, but ultimately I thought we’d get more use out of a Science Museum membership – especially after I looked into it and realized that (a) we’d only have to go three times in a year and the membership would have paid for itself and then some; (b) they have a dedicated toddler play area; and (c) there was a special Curious George exhibit coming, just for a temporary period, that would be free to members.  Sold!  So I picked up the membership cards and they were wrapped up under the tree for hubby to open.  He was surprised and excited, because he loves the science museum, and we hadn’t been there since moving to Buffalo.  We started using our membership right away, going for the first time on a chilly Saturday in late January.

When we first arrived, Peanut was extremely apprehensive.  She didn’t appreciate the dinosaur skeleton towering over the registration desk and she was overwhelmed with the first few exhibits we visited.  The first 45 minutes or so she spent clinging to my neck and refusing to be put down or held by anyone but me.  (Awwww.  So sweet!  But also kind of exhausting to tote a clingy toddler and a third trimester baby bump around a museum.)  Fortunately, she warmed up to the place when we got to the nanotechnology exhibit.  There were blocks, crayons and sheets for coloring, and big magnifying glasses to play with.  I’m sure it all factored into nanotechnology somehow, but I was too busy chasing Peanut around to read the explanatory placards.  She got really into playing with the blocks and probably spent twenty minutes sitting in this chair arranging and rearranging them.  (Focused play!  Her teachers have been commenting lately that she really concentrates when she gets into something.)

After the nanotechnology exhibit we went to the motion room.  This was when Peanut really got crazy.  There was a lot to do in the motion room – you could build cars and race them on a track, move tiny foam balls through tubing you could arrange yourself, and levitate the same tiny foam balls over pipes with air blowing straight up – and more that we didn’t get to.  Again, I missed out on a lot of the explanations of things due to chasing an increasingly excited toddler around.  No big deal, though – I know we’ll go back plenty more times this year, so I can learn another time (maybe).

Peanut really liked the car racing track.  She thought it was her own personal slide.  We had to drag her away when some kids wanted to use it for its actual intended purpose.

There was running and shrieking.  By the way, do you like Peanut’s shoes?  She’s going through a phase right now where she’s opinionated about her footwear.  I can still dress her in any outfit I want (so she looks reasonably coordinated in public) but she must wear her silver glitter Mary Janes at all times – even in the house.  We’ve given up on trying to sell her on her sneakers for outings like this.  Eventually she’ll get tired of the “style shoes.”  Or grow out of them!

Hands down, the biggest hit was the air tubes.  Peanut didn’t quite get that you were supposed to set them up and then float the balls.  It was way more fun to hold a ball and let the air blow your baby hair straight up.  Well… she’s got a point.  Much hilarity ensued:

(I love this picture.  Look how happy she is!)

At that point, we decided it was time to bug out and head home for lunch.  As you can see, we didn’t even make it to the toddler play area!  Really, with so many hands-on activities for all ages, the whole museum is kind of a toddler play area.  The nice thing about having a membership is that we don’t feel compelled to push Peanut past her boundaries just to get our money’s worth (because the individual ticket prices are a little on the steep side).  We know we can come back anytime with our membership – so if we just want to stay for an hour and Peanut only wants to play with one exhibit, we don’t stress about it at all.  In fact, guess what we did the very next Saturday?

The next Saturday was the first day of the special Curious George exhibit.  It’s a temporary installation from February to about mid-May, in which kids get to explore George’s city home and try a bunch of different activities.  Peanut is recently obsessed with Curious George.  It started at Christmas when we found a Curious George Christmas special and then discovered that there is a whole cartoon series (narrated by William H. Macy!) about George’s adventures.  Peanut usually watches an episode over her morning milk before getting ready for school, and she loves the show.  We also own several of the books, which Peanut wants to read constantly since discovering the cartoon.  So, all this is to say, we knew the George exhibit was going to be a big hit.

And was it ever!  I didn’t know if the exhibit would be more about the books, or independent, but it turned out it tracked the cartoon.  If you haven’t been watching the cartoon every day since December, as we have, you may not think this is quite as cool, but we were running around shouting things like “Look, it’s Chef Pisghetti’s restaurant!  There’s Gnocchi!  Look, Peanut, the Renkins’ farm!  Hey, it’s Professor Wiseman’s museum!”

It’s possible we were a little bit too excited.

Anyway, Peanut had a ball.  She tried out some steering wheels (I think there was an actual point to these, and older kids might have been able to figure out what to do, but they were being monopolized by Peanut and a posse of other toddlers that were crawling all over them).

She tried on some hard hats at a construction site…

And there was a corner where you could stack these large foam blocks up and feed square blocks into a conveyor belt.  Peanut spent about ten minutes throwing the blocks and cackling with glee.  It was basically a toddler free-for-all in there, so we just let her go at it.

(I didn’t get any non-blurry pictures of that action, because she was moving too fast.  In her style shoes, no less.)

Peanut also enjoyed exploring the mailboxes in George’s apartment building, and patting Hundley, the neat freak lobby dachshund.

Then she headed over to the corner of the room dedicated to the Renkins’ farm (neighbors of George and the Man with the Yellow Hat when they’re out at their country house) and found a stuffed bunny.  Peanut was overwhelmed with joy.  She stood in the middle of the room and shouted at the top of her lungs, “EVERYONE!  I HAVE A BUNNY!”

Then Peanut and the bunny meandered over to the other side of the room, where there were some more science-focused activities for older kids.  Peanut and the bunny spent several minutes fitting these test tubes into little round holes.

And she examined her fingers under a microscope with Daddy.  Eventually (after about twenty minutes of carrying him around) we finally persuaded Peanut to return the bunny to the farm and head home.  Peanut really had a fabulous time, and I’m so glad the Curious George exhibit will be open until May – I think we’ll be spending a lot of weekend mornings there this winter.  In fact, Peanut’s school and my office are closed for the holiday today, so I’m thinking a visit to George might even be in order for this morning…

Do you have any museum memberships?  What are your favorite local activities?