Picnic by the Pond

For the first time in several weeks, we had a wide-open weekend. After an especially long week at work for Keith and a hot, sweaty, cranky week at home for Bert and I (yes, that applies to both mom and baby), we felt like we needed to get out of the house and do something really relaxing. A picnic fit the bill.

We decided to head out to a small grove maintained by our county park system. It's only about a ten minute drive from our house but we had never been there. It features a pond with a walking trail around it (fishing is allowed too), a pavilion, and some open, grassy areas. I think there may have been a volleyball net there too but the pavilion was rented out so maybe someone brought it and set it up for the day.

We decided to walk the trail around the pond before having lunch. What we didn't expect were a few narrow footbridges and a rather steep set of steps going down a small ravine and then up the other side. We could have just turned around, but instead we took Bert out of the stroller and I carried him while Keith navigated the steps with the stroller.

At the bottom of the ravine, there was a nice little area where we could look across the pond, and a cool old metal bell that Keith just had to ring.

While Keith was struggling with the stroller, I sensed a photo-op and snapped a few pictures of Bert.

As we made our way back around the pond, we found a shady, grassy spot to eat lunch. For Mother's Day, Bert got me a picnic backpack (though I'm thinking Keith helped out a bit with the online ordering) and I've been eager to put it to use. It came with four plates, glasses, and sets of utensils, along with napkins, teeny tiny salt and pepper shakers, and a little cutting board and knife. The backpack has an insulated area for food, and a pouch on the side big enough to hold a bottle of wine, though we were packing iced tea for the day.

We had a really fancy lunch of sandwiches and chips.

Bert had some veggies and grilled cheese, but he was eyeing up our chips the whole time.

We hung out at our picnic spot for quite awhile, just enjoying a gorgeous day and watching Bert run around.

We only had to stop him from eating acorns fifty times. He was actually very good, content to just wander around checking things out but never getting too far away from us that we had to go and catch him. He liked watching some little chipmunks race around.

Before we left, we thought we should try to get a picture of the three of us. Looks like we got the most important person in the shot.

Let's try one more time. That's better.

It was about as perfect as a day can get.