we went to the beach today for six hours. it was a beach that you had to hike into, and i was pretty much determined to get my money's worth. no way was i going to hike with carter on my back, a backpack of assorted gear on my front, and a bucket full of toys for a half hour only to turn around again after an hour. we met up with a bunch of other moms and kids, much to ava's delight, and she was basically off. i think she interacted with me for all of 15 minutes. carter had a great time, sorting shells and seaweek (lakeweed?) and rocks and branches for hours. i managed to get him down for a nap as well, on a towel, protected by a barrier of backpacks. it was a grand success save for one thing. the sunscreen. apparently, it is safe, but not effective. we will be going back to the toxc variety tomorrow, because we are all reddish today. it kept the sun at bay, but not enough to completely block its effects. hopefully they will not emerge looking like lobsters tomorrow morning.

we have finally exhausted our hand-picked strawberry stash--we managed to get to the u-pick-em patch before they all were picked over to fill almost 4 quarts the other day. it was tremendous fun--ava and carter probably got another quart in them while we were there, and ava got a lesson in food origins. this sounds silly and nerdy, but it was very educational. ava kept saying "i am a really good strawberry picker!" and we had a long conversation about the route food takes to the table--it had a large impact on her. what was especially cool was that there were no pesticides--we had to search through tons of weeds, and there were plenty of insects, but who cares--they were not the biting variety, and we just checked our berries carefully--you had to anyway, in case they were past their prime. and they were DELICIOUS.