Strawberries

Hola hola!

These past two days have been strawberry-filled days indeed!
Let me tell you about it~~

On Sunday, the whole family headed out to the Lebanon Strawberry Festival to watch Ella Rose perform in public for the first time! :)
Ever since April, Ella has been practicing with her "dance troupe" through the local Parks & Rec program to perform a cute little number for an audience at the Festival. The tiny troupe is only five girls, but the day of the performance...only three of them turned out!

The other girls are 7 and 8, so Ella is the youngest by 3 years!

So a little improvisation was called for, and below is the result!

We stuck around to enjoy the other performances -- all of which were put on by the Cascade Performing Arts Center where Ella's teacher, Lisa Russell, works.
After that, we scadaddled home to host some company -- Sophie and the gang once again! -- and had a grand old time with homemade Shirley Temples, Ella's fresh-caught fish, and The Little Mermaid at the end. Ha! :D

Then, today I took the kids strawberry-picking for the first time ever! It was also my first time in the States (somehow I recall going いちご-picking in Japan...go figure!)

We went to Fairfield Farm where it's $1/lb for spray-free strawberries - yay!
We were the only ones in the field, so that was nice, but between trying to keep William from eating the dirt, and keeping Ella focused on the task, it was a not exactly a walk in the park.
Nah, I shouldn't say that -- Ella Rose really was very patient to crouch among the vines with me for as long as she did, and poor William had fallen asleep on the way only to be prematurely awoken upon our arrival, so I can't blame him.

Nevertheless, this is how I felt when we finally got home and had a a whopping 5 pounds to show for it:

Blisssssss~!

We promptly, washed, hulled, and then boiled four of the five pounds to make homemade jam!

Our little army of jams~!

I am a fan of the freezer-jam route, because you can get away with less sugar and no pectin even. Ha!
The big jar on the left was the least officially canned (because we have no lid for it!) so it will be our go-to jam for the week. I look forward to putting it on biscuits, pancakes, and toast. We already enjoyed it with our brinner tonight too. Yum!!

Well!
That's all for now.
I foresee many more strawberry-picking adventures, especially when my mom comes into town in a couple of weeks. She loves to participate in things that get your hands dirty, that might make you sweat a bit, but ultimately feel so rewarding at the end -- plus, she can entertain the kids when they've reached their capacity for picking in the fields ;)

Until next time, take care everyone and Happy Strawberries!!