Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Picnic in the Street

Yesterday, my family had a picnic with the neighbors that live on our cul-de-sac.  Around 2:30, we started setting up a couple of tables to hold the food and a series of chairs just to sit on, as well as dragging a couple of the grills out.  The novel part was that the picnic took place in the middle of the street, in the center of our cul-de-sac.  It was a lot of fun, and we got to meet many of the new neighbors whom we have not had the opportunity to interact with. 

The style was pot-luck, which is always interesting to me.  I always think that we will be short on food, but there is always much, much more than could possibly be eaten  by anyone.  Lots of good food: chicken,  burgers, sausages, chili, potato-fruit salad, seven layer dip, chips and salsa.  I was stuffed, and happy.

Bacci ball was played a couple of times.  I was matched up with one of the new neighbors and we eneded up being a pretty good team, playing two other teams and winning both times, albeit by a small margin.  Regardless, it was a fun time.

The kids rode their bikes around and blew bubbles and played in tents.  It seemed like they were having a fun time, too.

The day was beautiful.  The only downside was that it was very windy outside.  We couldn't leave empty bowls or bowls with just light things like chips in them sitting around.  But, once we learned the steps necessary to prevent a big mess, it wasn't a big deal.

We were outside until about 7, so it was about 4 and 1/2 hours long.  It was a good time and I look forward to doing something like that again next year, or maybe we won't have to wait that long.