Spur-of-the-moment picnic!

Last week my brother Jeff mentioned that we should have a picnic together at the park sometime, so on short notice we decided to brave the weather forecast and have a picnic last Thursday night.

We went to a local park about 5 minutes from my parents, and virtually had the place to ourselves. It did end up raining for just a few minutes, which added to the excitement as we dashed from the playground to the pavilion (Noah said we needed to "find shelter!"). Just a few minutes after finding cover the rain stopped and the sun shone down again, just like I predicted. After that I got to hear the girls say over and over, "Aunt Missy was right! It stopped raining!" Ah, music to my ears. :)

Eli and Daddy - the Crocodile Riders!

Grandma heads down the slide with the kids.

Eli, Lexi, and Tori, doing "gymnastics"

It was still pretty windy though, so the concrete in the pavilion ended up being painted a nice red color from the kool-aid that went flying in a sudden gust. And the kids were more interested in eating cheese popcorn than actual dinner. Grandma opened the bag and it was a feeding frenzy, reminding me of those shark documentaries you see.

Watch out, there's popcorn in the water!

Eli discovered his bib made a good pouch for holding his popcorn.

The girls and Eli on the "climbing wall" of the pavilion.

The battery on the camera ran out so I didn't get that many pictures of us playing, but Mom did snap a pic of most of us up on the big tractor tires. Bravo to Jeff for managing to scramble up in dress shoes (he came straight from work to join us). After being away from Grand Rapids for so long it is such a special treat to be able to enjoy fun family time on the spur-of-the-moment (and a weeknight none the less)!

Everyone on top of the tires start screaming!

We made it to the top of Mt. Tire-verest!