My mom’s side family picnic was this past weekend at my Uncle Ken and Aunt Sue's house. Always a good time, always!
The biggest highlight is when what started out as a simple water balloon toss competition organized by my Mom turned into Andrew and John launching hundreds of water balloons over the house. We had planned this spectacle, of course. We had a nice assembly line going: one person taking balloons from the container, another stretching them across the special hose nozzle, a third filling them up, and a fourth person tying them and putting them in a bucket. When we had filled like 200 of them, me, Channing, my mom, and my little second cousins Dominik, Amanda, and Savannah ran to the other side of the house and waited for the ambush. Andrew and John hurled all of the balloons over, one by one, as fast as they could (it was a ranch-style house, so they didn’t have to throw them excessively high). It was raining balloons, they were coming so fast. Judging by our screams, they were trying to figure out where we were standing :). The little kids were trying to catch the balloons, which ended up in them just getting soaked, and Channing, my mom, and I were just trying to avoid getting hit. What a blast, quite literally.
Other highlights:
Savannah’s toad that she caught and carried around in her hands for hours, even though she made it a jar home, as pictured here.
Super-gigantic cucumbers
Chickens running around the yard
Savannah climbs a tree
The always-amazing corn hole; Andrew and Channing vs. Mom and Dad
In addition, things I do not have pictures for:
--Playing with a gigantic, hula hoop frisbee and watching Andrew get it stuck at the top of a tree. “Oh, crap.”
--Playing croquet with John, Andrew, and Channing. I have discovered that I completely and totally suck at croquet. I only got like halfway through the course before everyone else finished. (Why did I list this as a highlight…?)
--The hay ride we started and were unable to finish because the tractor’s wheel was cracked. Uncle Ken and Dave dragged a huge air compressor all the way out to the field before they realized the tire was cracked, not just flat. So really, there was no hay ride after all.
P.S.
John and I have matching Belden Brick hats.
