Hubby and I had the grandkids for an overnighter on Friday. I woke up this morning with the great idea of taking them for a picnic to a nearby nature preserve with a large lake. Since I am a scrapbooker, (i.e.-collector of scrapbooking paraphanalia), I have visions of great photo ops that are scrapbook worthy.
We live in the South, so we generally skip from winter to summer. It's barely June and we have had a multitude of 90+ degree days with extremely high humitity. Being outside for an extended period of time is like being in a sweatbox. Today was no exception. We got to the park and found a nice picnic table not too far from the parking lot. This was a good thing with two kiddos in tow, beachtowels, picnic lunch, bug spray, sunscreen, BandAids, baby wipes, purse, and of course the trusty camera bag with extra batteries. I learned "overkill" from my Dad.
Our five-year-old granddaughter recently had a frightening experience with tree frogs and now freaks out at the sign of a bug or creepy-crawly. Things began to go downhill when she spied a grand-daddy longlegs on the picnic table. She didn't want to go near it until the underside of the table and seats had been closely inspected and "Pappy" had banished all intruders.
Well, even though the picnic table was close to the parking lot, it was also in full sun. There was a slight breeze, so I thought we'd be just fine. Our two-and-a-half year old grandson then had a meltdown because he thought his food was going to blow away. Photo Op No. 1: One redeeming photo of our granddaughter feeding grapes to a curious squirrel.
After packing up lunch, we thought we'd move on to fishing. Oops...we forgot to buy bait. My hubby who is the king of improv said we'd just use leftover bread and deli chicken since crappie will eat anything, even gum (we've tried it). The walk through the woods to the pier was much farther than anticipated..with two kiddos, backpack, two fishing poles, tackle box, purse, beach towel, papertowels, snacks, and again the trusty camera bag..with extra batteries. Isn't the scouting motto, "Be Prepared"?
Hubby got the fishing rods set up while I spread out the beach towel for the little ones to sit and fish. Again, we're in full sun and it's blazing hot. Little Boy is crying because he does not want sunscreen on his face. The bread balls kept falling off the fishhooks.
Photo op No. 2: Two kiddos holding fishing rods, sans fish...not a bite, not a nibble...zilch. I now know why it's called fishing and not catching...there was certainly no catching today. But in spite of it all, making memories with the grandchildren...PRICELESS!
Copyright 2011 Charlotte Laney
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