Strawberry Picking 2015

We love taking the kids on field-trips that enable them to experience the world outside New Day Foster Home.  Many of the trips are ones that we do every year because they are just so much fun, and our annual strawberry-picking expedition is one of the first of these trips, once the weather starts to warm up here in Beijing.  This year the strawberries seem to have ripened nice and early.

It's fun to look back at last year's strawberry-picking expedition; many of the kids featured have now left us to join their forever families!  Enya had only recently arrived, and it's so wonderful to see how much happier and more confident she's looking now.

Josiah is one of the kids that wasn't with us for last year's trip, and this was almost certainly his first time picking (and tasting) strawberries.  It looks like he enjoyed the experience, doesn't it?

Judah arrived last Summer, so this was his first time strawberry-picking too.  With a little help from his friend Rachael, he was able to get in between the strawberry beds and select the juiciest berries to put into the box (or his own mouth).

Hannah and Zoe are expert strawberry-pickers (and eaters).  Both of these lovely young ladies are matched now, and we are hoping that their next berry-picking expedition will be with their forever families.

With the lush green of the leaves and the jewel-red of the fruit, the strawberry patch makes such a pleasing backdrop for photographs...

...especially when the children's clothes are beautifully color-coordinated!  A few smears of red-berry juice just adds to the effect, as Violet demonstrates.

Annabel took a little persuading to taste her 'first' strawberry, as she is too young to remember last year's trip.  Eventually she agreed to a little bite; she pulled such a funny face...and went on to eat three more!