Underwood Strawberries

 Violet and the rest of the first-graders boarded buses Thursday for their big field trip to Underwood Farms.

Violet's between her buddies Camryn and Ryan here, showing off her super cool fidget spinner. We've given in to the spinner madness (mainly because they were at Vons for under $4).


Yes, they went last year to Underwood, too, but that was to pick vegetables. This year, they're lucky enough to pick strawberries.

 It's easier to get the classic class shot on the haystack when you only have seven kiddos to round up! The eighth Hawthorne firstie, Gavin, didn't make the trip.
Here are Ryan, Luke, Camryn, Violet, Rylin, Aya and Noah, with Mrs. Hawthorne. This group of kids has formed a special bond; it's fabulous seeing them play together at recess and lunch. I hope they all remain friends through their school years.

Following a lesson on plants with all the other field trip groups, we boarded wagons for our trip to the strawberry patch.

 You can see, it was a lot of fun.

Shortly after this photo, Violet, Aya and Camryn began a rousing version of "99 Bottles of Milk on the Wall" at the top of their lungs. Good times!

 The fields were full of juicy red berries, so it wasn't hard to fill our boxes.

We picked strawberries with our MOPS/Mom2Mom group year after year. Thursday was a fitting closure to my years of going to Underwood - one last time, and it was strawberries again.

Thanks to Mrs. Hawthorne for this photo, and a couple of others here.

More singing on the wagon ride back, this time with cheesy smiles.

We had lunch on the picnic tables, and then went out into the fun part of Underwood.

 Violet flew down the combine slide.

Then we looked at the animals, including the chickens...

...and turkeys.

Such a fun day; I'm so thankful to be able to go on these field trips. I know these days go by too quickly.

Underwood Farms

On Wednesday of this week, Violet's kindergarten class took the annual field trip to Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark.

This time, as an official chaperone (and room parent, and regular Wednesday volunteer), I got to ride the school bus with the kiddos. (Here's my blog post about Cora's kinder trip...)

We then had our farm lesson from Farmer Juan, with scores of other field trippers from other schools.

On our tractor ride into the vegetable fields, we were amazed by the many shades of green.

We pulled up radishes, picked sugar snap peas, broke off kohlrabi and snapped off long kale leaves.

Then it was time for lunch.

After lunch, we had a bit of time to explore the fun parts of Underwood - the animals, the huge combine slide, the pyramid hay stacks and the underground tunnels.

We gathered again for a class photo before reboarding the bus.








Violet and Danica: "No photos, please."

Here was our haul! I used my vegetable cookbook to find some awesome ways to prepare these beauties, and the whole family ate it up.

Water Fun, Underwood Farm

After our nice long weekend, we headed into Violet's final week of preschool.

On Wednesday, Violet and her class had fun with water play. They wore bathing suits to school and played with squirt guns, water balloons and a big beach ball. It's hard to believe this was her final day of Pre-K!
Here she is posing with the Calebs, Austin and Elena.

After school, we went to visit the turtles, ducks and geese at the pond at Bridgeport Marketplace. Elena, her mom Amber and brother Samuel joined us.

Colleen, Christina and I took our little girls to Underwood Farm in Moorpark to pick strawberries on Thursday.
We've gone just about every spring with MOPS/Mom2Mom, but this year we didn't plan a group trip. I still wanted to go though, and I convinced the other gals to keep us company. I'm not ready to let go of all the fun of being a mom of a preschooler, without real school dictating our schedule!

Sadly, Violet was very scared of the bees she saw near the strawberry blossoms, and spent our picking time on the edge of the patch.

Yummy berries!

The girls had fun with all that Underwood had to offer, including the sand pit inside this pumpkin structure.

I'm so grateful for these fun days out with friends!

Underwood Strawberry Picking, 2014

It's spring, so it's time for our annual trip to Underwood Family Farms to pick strawberries with our Mom2Mom friends.

We drove to Moorpark on Thursday with our new friend Christina and her daughters Cami and Melanie. Cami is in Cora's class, and Melanie is a few days older than Violet, so the girls all have fun together.

 We've been strawberry-picking with Liana since she and Violet were babies strapped to our chests.

 Here's Violet, Cora, Cami and Melanie. Christina and I picked up the big girls about 10 minutes apart, so they didn't arouse suspicion by leaving their class together.

 It was forecast to be horribly hot on Friday, with a wind. Thankfully, though it was hot, the wind kept us cool and dry, so our day was bearable.

 Farmer Tiffany here was very helpful and personable; she led the girls and I to a couple of rows with many bright red, juicy berries to choose from.

 Yum!
Violet later made strawberry juice with some of hers. In her words, you just "crack the strawberries and put them in water." I had her rinse and cut off the stem, and then we blended them in the blender with a tiny bit of water and sugar. It was thick, but tasty too.

 Here, Violet is turning the crank to bring food up the pulley to the goat standing up on the platform. (You can just see his rear legs, as he is blending in to the tree.)

Violet especially loved the goat kids, and wanted to borrow the camera to take her own photos of them.

We had a very fun day together - fun and exhausting. When we got back home around 3, we were all ready for a nap. Well, Christina and I were ready for a nap at least!

Underwood Field Trip

 

Cora's class took a field trip to Underwood Family Farms to pick vegetables Wednesday.

I wasn't able to ride on the bus, since I had Violet. Genia and I rode together, with Owen and Violet. Thanks to Facebook, I gleaned some great photos from other parents who chaperoned. The bus ride, I hear, was fun but under control, since the children wore seatbelts and the high seat backs limited their interactions. Cora sat between Vivian and Sophia.

 

 Here's Cora and Vivian with first-graders Mikey, Gabe and Ian. Cora's "firsties" lucked out with this kindergarten field trip, since the rest of the school's first-graders were back at school.

After an educational presentation about how fruits and vegetables grow, it was time to board the tractors.

 

 We picked red-leaf lettuce, radishes, beets, bok choy and spinach.

Cora and Sophia, showing off their beets. Sophia has become Cora's favorite classmate; they've had several playdates, and are asking for more.

 I guess Cora was happier to have Violet along on the tractor ride than Violet?

Cora's class... I'll miss this group of children! I've really enjoyed interacting with them when I'm able to help in class.

After vegetable-picking, we had our picnic lunch together, and then explored the farm for about 40 minutes before it was time to pack up and head back to school.

It was a very nice day out, with perfect weather and no mishaps. I'm so pleased Violet and I were able to go.
Thanks to Sophia's mom Sue and Vivian's mom Elaine for many of these photos!

Underwood Strawberries

Last week, we went to Underwood Farms in Moorpark for our annual strawberry picking trip with our Mom2Mom friends.

Behind Violet, you an see the smoke from the huge Camarillo Springs fire. We were several miles away, but the smell was pretty strong and later in the day ash was floating through the air.

Violet enjoyed it, and I took Cora out of school an hour early so she could come along too. 

Our friends Michelle and Brooke met us too, since they now live so close. Moorpark is about 45 minutes from us, but 10-15 minutes from them in Camarillo. 

 Unfortunately, our trip coincided with one of two very hot days, with temps in the upper 90s.

Despite loads of sunscreen and water, Violet was still searching for shade on our wagon ride back from the strawberry field. She only found it under the bench seat.

Underwood has quite a few animals to check out; here Liana and Violet insisted the alpacas were baby camels.

An old combine is now open for the children, and has a slide.

Cora did very well playing with Cora and Liana. Maybe because they're now bigger girls, she had a lot of fun bringing them into the imaginary games she loves to play. They ate it up, following her lead most of the time.

Here, Violet was hiding in part of a wooden train play structure.

Despite the warmth, it was a really fun day out. The breeze cooled us off and we found enough shade to make it comfortable. And, we went home with four boxes of freshly picked delicious berries!