Family Picnic

We drove over the mountain to Brian's folks' house yesterday for a family picnic. We had a relaxing time out by the pond with Brian's relatives, eating good food and enjoying the warm but relatively mild weather. Erik got to meet his grandparents' dog, a sweet, mild-mannered golden lab, the name of which I don't think I ever learned. The valley is so beautiful any time of year. Everything seems to be in Technicolor. While I am thrilled to have any plant higher than six inches tall with a blossom on it the size of a dime here (you need a jeweler's loupe to see some of them), many valley residents are busy hacking at what has grown in their front yard with actual machetes to keep their homes from being overtaken by nature and enjoying fat rose and hydrangea blossoms the size of their heads. Brian and I sometimes have trouble identifying plants in the valley, as they are the distortedly gigantic, Land of the Lost version of what we are familiar with on the high desert. Brian's parents' have a large front yard with one of each of every tree known to man surrounding a waterfall, pond, and creek stocked with colorful koi and goldfish zigzagging under a layer of floating lilies and riparian plant life studded with brilliant blue and orange dragonflies. We had a picnic lunch in this setting and took turns keeping Erik from going head first into the pond or running miles down the road Forrest Gump style. The way he runs isn't close to being graceful, but it gets him from point A to point B quickly. What he lacked in grace he made up for in enthusiasm, crashing through tall grass without a real plan but enjoying himself anyway. We did let him splash in the creek a little bit, and I brought bubbles with me, which still hold a little entertainment value. He was taken with the little green lawn sprinkler that he could spin, but not nearly as much as he would have been in months past. He seemed to be more interested in the dirt, rocks, and water than anything else. He also easily chose being dirty over being social. Every inch of skin and clothing on our boy was faintly tinted dirt brown when we left, and he slept soundly most of the way home. The drive back was uneventful, and we are now settled back into the rest of our weekend.