Chocolate and Grapes

This week M watched "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" movie. You know, the updated one with Johnny Depp. It's funny 'cause last time we tried showing it to him, back in January, he could care less for it. But now, it's a whole different story. Not only he loves it, but he even plays pretend chocolate factory. He's building one out of a ball of twine, a mailing tube, a workout mat, a bunch of pebbles and quite a few pretend components that noone but him can see. He even puts pretend gloves on, just like Willy Wonka! BTW, he figured out why he needs those gloves - so that his hands don't get sticky from all the chocolate.

As for the grapes, we finally found a pick-your-own vineyard, Lu Mil, growing Scuppernongs and Muscadines. It was quite a drive too, all the way in Elizabethtown, NC. But I think it was worth it. The place is really beautiful and my pictures don't do it any justice.

Picking grapes is much easier and more enjoyable than picking strawberries. So even though we spent plenty of time just running between the rows of grapes, looking for the biggest Muscadines and for huge insects, and snapping photos, we picked a nice bucket of grapes really quickly.

Then we got some grape cider slushies (great stuff!) and retired to a shaded patio to enjoy it. Except, of course, that M kept running back into the store to check out the old gramophone that they had as part of their room decor. He loved it since, of course, it worked and the did have an old record on it too! He kept spinning the record, but of course got little except noise and some garbled sounds now and then. Still, he was excited and said that we should buy a gramophone.

This is his new thing - "we should buy" this and that. Yesterday it was a puppy. A few days ago it was a different car. Then it was a chocolate factory, of course, and a cotton candy-making machine. And now it's this - gramophone. Well, I don't know about buying one, but we can probably make one pretty easily. Something to think about...

Today, when I asked M what was his most favorite part of the day (something of a ritual we have now every night before going to bed), he said "Going to pick grapes with you and Papa. We are going to go back, right?". Gotta love this kiddo!