CFA Sleepover and Strawberry Picking

With Easter being the beginning of Spring Break we couldn’t go out of town until the end of the break. I didn’t feel the need to fill up the whole week with “fun stuff” since we did have a beach trip happening…but I still wanted to make it memorable during our time at home! Thankfully CFA hosted a stuffed animal sleepover! Not only was it FREE to participate but they even gave out coupons so it was a big win for the wallet 🙂 

They had us bring our friends to drop off but during the drop off was not family night. I prepped my kids and told them we were eating dinner at home prior. However, it was the same day we did our make-up egg hunt so I hid a couple coupon eggs that were good for an ice cream treat at CFA 😉 

Getting to wear PJS out of the house means instant FUN!!! Chick-Fil-A ALWAYS goes above and beyond with their events. The kids each filled out info about their friends and helped give their friends a name tag. They also got pics of their friends with the CFA cow who was, of course, ready for the slumber party!

Casey is always down for fun events…our mutual love of all things FUN is def something that bonds us even closer!

Britt didn’t even plan it but just so happened to be wearing zebra pjs and chose a zebra as her friend!

Carter and George!

My dad gave Kye this HUGE bear when he was born and he recently started sleeping with him every night (appropriately named: Big Blue Bear)

Tess LOVES Bob but she doesn’t love picture taking 😉

Cashing in those ice cream coupons!

The next morning we had to go back to Chick-Fil-A to pick up our friends. GENIUS marketing idea right?!?! It gets you to visit the restaurant TWICE! Since we didn’t eat dinner there the night prior, we did get breakfast that morning and had fun playing (we also didn’t play the night before) before taking our friends!

Not only did our friends have a BLAST but the staff also took pictures of everything and posted them for us all to see 🙂 SO cute!

Big Blue Bear caused some trouble and put toilet paper all over the play place!

Kye’s favorite game is Sorry so seeing Big Blue Bear playing it was his favorite!

Kye is SO great with helping Tess!

After we played for awhile we headed out to the strawberry patch for our yearly visit. We decided to go over Spring Break so it wouldn’t be SO HOT. While the weather was AMAZING…we had just had a huge storm and it ruined a lot of the berries so picking was pretty much a bust. It was still a fun time though…and memorable (as things always are when Casey and I take the kids on adventures haha).

Bonding over their potty training. They just kept hugging!

Our kids are PROS at some strawberry picking!

sidenote but ohmygoodness I just found the pics of Britt when she wore this same dress!

This is SUCH a similar face they are both making! 

We picked some berries but realized pretty quickly that there just weren’t a lot of non-damaged one left. We saw a barn with a big sign so we walked over to check it out and saw it was a petting zoo. There was NO signage saying anything about it so we assumed we’d just look around. Y’all. We have been to this specific farm on another occasion (last year actually which was an adventure in itself) and we will NOT be back after this petting zoo experience…

There was poop EVERYWHERE. As in truly a mine field type situation. We couldn’t even attempt to keep it from our shoes. The toddlers were so pumped for the animals that we all just went for it. It was all over the ground around the big barn thing and all over the flooring of the barn as well. The animals areas were not well kept and it was just straight up disgusting. 

To make matters worse…there was this HUGE sheep that I’m 99.9% positive was DEAD. It didn’t move the whole time, no breathing, no responding when we shouted, and I could see some of what looked like feces near it’s rear. Probably one of the most disgusting, semi-horrifying things I’ve personally witnessed. Other animals were in the pin with it too! 

Tess LOVED the horses. She kept inching closer and closer

Then she got too close and freaked out haha

Once we got out of the landmine of poop we all scrapped our shoes on the grass on the walk back to the strawberry patch…

I took Tess inside to go potty and told the girl working there (who when we arrived ignored us b/c she was talking on the phone and literally just gave us a slide glance as she handed us our picking baskets…) that their sheep had died. She said “You went to the petting zoo area? It’s closed.” Um. Welllll it didn’t LOOK closed and even if it was closed they should still be keeping it clean and getting rid of dead ANIMALS right?!?! A guy walked in who also must have worked there and she said to him “She said your sheep is dead.” All he said? “Oh ok.” That’s it. Didn’t even address me at ALL. 

I was pretty annoyed by the lack of quality in the berries. I understand there was a storm but when we arrived the girl should have TOLD US that the berries weren’t in great shape. I also understand the petting zoo area may have been closed. But again…no signs or anything to let us know about that. And on top of all of that to have them act like this dead sheep was no big issue REALLY bugged me. This was our last visit to this particular farm! 

We did enjoy playing on the playground and eating our picnic lunch before heading home!

We also couldn’t resist a little ice cream treat 🙂

These were all the berries that I could even keep and they weren’t even in very good shape either! 

While it was a pretty disappointing strawberry patch visit, it kept the tradition alive and def gave us an experience we won’t soon be forgetting!

You can see our past strawberry patch adventures here:

2015

2014

2013

2012

2010

Emily Parker

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