Strawberries!

On Saturday, Andy left the house at 4:00 AM to go drive towards Virginia and get on a boat for 14 hours.  All in the name of the skippers, or snipers, or some fish-thing like that.  Since Chad and I were completely uninterested, we had to find other ways to amuse ourselves.
First, Chad had some pants-free playtime with the cat.

He opened the cats' toy box and dumped everything out.  Yes, of course my cats have a toy box.  Yours don't?

 Trying to contain the Fen-meister

By then it was time to get out of the house.  If you've ever been around Chad's Poppop, you've probably heard the story about Steph and I at the strawberry patch.  It seemed to me that this would be a good time for Chad to show us what kind of strawberry picking skills he had. We went to a farm near Duke that had a LOT of rules.  I don't remember there being so many rules about strawberry picking when I was little. 

 We brought a sand bucket to collect our harvest in.  I wasn't sure carrying Chad and one of those cardboard tray things they give you would work.

 We were very careful to follow the rule about only picking the RED strawberries.

There were a lot of squished strawberries.  Hey, you know what's a bad idea?  Wearing a white tank top when you go strawberry picking with a toddler.  I may have a Ph.D., but it's not in common sense.

Right before he dumped all the strawberries out onto his lap.

After a bit, he decided it was time to pick dirt instead. 

 Leaving with his bounty.  We picked about 1.5 pounds of berries.  I got home, washed them all, and gave one to Chad, who spit it out because he doesn't like strawberries unless they're smooshed up, mixed with sugar and pectin and spread on bread with peanut butter.  Oh well, more for me!

 When we got home, it was time to play with the water table he got for Christmas!  This occupied him for almost an hour, and we probably would have stayed out there longer if it wasn't looking stormy.

Down goes the tower!

  Chad felt it was time to water the fence.  We've never done that, so it was probably about time.

  Taking a break in the weeds

He can't drink from a cup yet, but he'll drink from a boat!

 Wearing my bugs.  Look at all those chompers!

Chad earned notoriety at daycare today!  The director told us the school was having a great day because not one of the children had received an ouch report.  Perhaps Chad felt he wasn't living up to his true potential, because he got consecutive ouch reports at 4:00 and 4:25.
He may have had owies, but he was looking pretty cute, and he and his daddy both sported pink and blue striped polos.

 I think they planned to both close their eyes in this one.

Much better!