The Procrastinator's Picnic: 3 Things You Really Need

Oh, there are some lovely picnics out there!  If you get on pintrest you know what a magical thing a perfectly planned picnic can be!  Would you just look at this woodland set up on Kha Do's page or basically Janice Johnston’s whole board!  Granted, most of these were well planned and positioned for proposals or photo shoots, but how romantic! 

...and this is us! =)

I don’t know about you, but our kids love the idea of a picnic as well.  Truthfully, they were not deterred at all by basically having picnics every night for a couple months until our table arrived.  And now that it’s here I’ve been asked countless times if we can go to the neighboring arboretum for a picnic.  I kept putting it off because I needed to plan and prepare, get a perfect basket and containers, and figure out a way to haul a tiny vase of flowers into the middle of nowhere with two younglings and a moose of a dog in tow.  It didn’t take me too long to realize that might not be realistic for us at this stage in our lives!  But my brain is always trying to find a way to make things work, to get creative with the situation, and I started to whittle down these perfect picnics into something more practical for us right now.  I started to ask myself what we’d really need.

1.       Something edible: chances are, you’re going to be eating anyway, and, at least for us, lunches are often cold.  Sandwiches are great, but we were slightly pressed for time, so I just started throwing in what we had.  This is what I ended up with: a cucumber, sliced cheese, salami, crackers, guacamole, and an apple.  The only prep I did once we got there and that was just to cut the fruit and veggie with my pocket knife

2.       Somewhere to sit: we have an awesome place to visit down the road, and I’m super grateful for that.  But it’s really not necessary.  When we first moved down here, we would go out in our yard or even in our living room.  We once even had a snow picnic in Alaska!  A blanket to sit on is great but, again, not absolutely necessary.

3.       Someone to break bread (or whatever you have) with: Okay, technically you could have a picnic by yourself, but I feel the fun thing about picnics is being able to share them (and ideally the outdoors) with others. 

Finding Tiny Wonders Together

After a stressful morning of running all around town, this was such a perfect way to refocus and connect!  We looked for nature treasures on the way and tucked them in our bag.  We found a cozy place down by the river and settled in for our meal.  My little son said, “Mama, look!  It’s so nice to just sit here and look at how pretty the river is going down hill!”  Yes!  I love it when he gets it like that!

Views from our hike out

Their highlight was finding these two great dirt hills and sliding (or scooting, rather) all the way down!

 

All this to say that it was wonderful, refreshing, and imperfectly perfect. But we grew together which is much more important than my tiny vase of flowers! =)  I hope this might encourage you to take a picnic with the ones you love and just enjoy it without letting it be a huge inconvenience.  Hope you have a great week!  Oh, on that note, we may not have internet this week, but I shall return!