A Picnic Under the Cottonwoods

It was a delightful weekend. Special youth services at our church were held and between the meetings and the fellowship, it couldn’t have been better. All except for the fact that there wasn’t much shut-eye the last few days!

We worked so hard cleaning the house. All the kids’ help was enlisted and the sheets on all 7 beds were washed, beds remade, bathrooms cleaned and I don’t need to tell you what else because you all do it, too.  But don’t you wonder if it is really necessary because within the first 20 minutes of everyone arriving things deteriorate rapidly?:) But it’s really hard to do it any other way!

We had 30+ kids staying at our house, so we had snacks for everyone both Friday night and Saturday night. My favorite snacks were Saturday night. It was kind of a Mexican theme. It all could be made ahead and just had to be popped in the oven when we came home from church.

Snacks for Saturday night

Chips n Salsa
Hot Jalapeno Corn Dip (from Pinterest)
Hot Fiesta Pinwheels
Taquitos
Jalapeno Poppers
Vegetable Pizza

Saturday, as is our tradition, we had a get-together at our place. We prepared the sandwiches the day before. It was ham and Gouda cheese with a Dijon/mayonnaise mixture on sourdough bread. The day of the picnic we grilled the sandwiches. They were so good. Even when they had cooled off, they were quite tasty.

Audrey was so eager to help. Wanting to be a big girl. 🙂

Saturday morning there was a casual “come and get it when you like” breakfast.

and some friendly bow shooting going on amongst a few of the guys.

We had our picnic about a 1 1/2 miles from our house. The kids had to hike there and when they arrived they found these chilled fruit cups that we had prepared ahead of time and frozen.

It was such a beautiful location.

There were about 120 people who came.

Ice cream bars and cookies were on the menu for dessert.

Going home, they all got an unconventional ride.

And the enjoyable time continued Sunday. I was able to snap a quick picture of a few of the kids.

Now, about my house…

There are sheets to be washed, beds remade, bathrooms cleaned and oh, just a few other things I’m sure. 🙂