Raspberries!

We were invited to go raspberry picking today with our friends Joel, Karen, and Chkai. With the way Clara and Elena have been picking berries here at our house all summer long (red or not!) we knew they'd have a good time, so off we went.

Elena was very pensive about the whole thing - she definitely liked it, but I think seeing row upon row of berries had her doing some thinking, and she looks like it in these pictures. She started off with her Dad giving her a few pointers:

And then she got to the business of picking on her own:

And, of course, eating, too!

Even without a smile, doesn't she just look beautiful here?

Then Chkai picked her as his buddy, and they went off down another row to pick together:

They didn't come back with many berries, but their mini-adventure definitely filled their bellies.

Clara started out her picking with Karen and Chkai:

Chkai was showing her that she could use these containers for her berries, but she preferred her little bucket.

Okay, so she preferred EATING from her bucket:

She definitely got excited that all of these berries could be hers - here she is running down the row to tell Mom all about how many she has gotten so far:

She really was quite a good little berry-picker:

Alas, and predictably, not a single berry she picked made it home with us:

Because this was just too much fun!

Steve and Christina did manage to get a few pints to take home, and we'll certainly enjoy munching on them all back here, in the shade. Hooray for summer!