Mark and Astrid and the girlies came to "the farm" for July 4th weekend. We had a completely fun time, as always. This visit, we had a really great balance between relaxed time hanging around at home, and fun outings and activities.





Our first outing was CHERRY-PICKING! We were so happy to be able to hit Gavin Orchards on their very first day of you-pick cherries. As you can see, the trees were heavily loaded with glorious, glossy, deep-dark-red cherries.
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Here's most of the group walking out to the dwarf trees, which are easy for little ones to pick from without using a ladder. And clearly, we didn't need most of the members of this crew up on ladders. The two closest to Grandpa spring right to mind as ideal non-ladder users. I mean, really. That one on the right can't even see where he's going.
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Everybody did a lot of sampling, to be sure that we were only picking from trees with outstanding cherries. We wouldn't want to bring home less than the best. Quality control is very important.

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Even though they were dwarf trees, there were a few occasions for the kids to use their "daddy ladders" to reach some amazing clusters of the best, biggest, prettiest cherries growing higher up in the little trees.
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Henry picked and sampled his fair share of cherries. He actually ended the outing with only FIVE cherries in his bucket. He did do some careful picking and sorting with Grandpa, though. Grandpa patiently helped Henry learn to pick the prettiest cherries, and discard ones that had bruises or holes on them.









Cuteness, happiness, and lots of tasting among the trees. We were all geared up for massive skeeter attack, but there wasn't a mosquito to be seen. Nobody seemed disappointed about that either!
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A neat little line of cherry pickers! All of the kids except Henry filled their cherry buckets very nearly full. We now have *A LOT* of cherries to munch on.

We also had a delightful beach outing. Instead of the original plan of walking out to Rosy Mound beach (a 1/2 mile or so) we just drove to the city beach. We went early in the day, so we had no trouble parking, and the beach was not at all crowded. It was a beautiful day and everyone had a wonderful time.

Our beach trip was finished off by a stop at Skoops for ice cream. It was a very happy morning!