Picnic in the Rain
May. 9th, 2010 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aThese last couple of Mother's Days have been spent with my mom & family, and they've all been good times. Today she wanted to picnic at a regional park down south of Livermore, so that's where K. and I headed out early this morning.
We were a bit concerned about the weather. The weather reports all week had been predicting a chance of rain on Sunday. Not much of a chance. About 20%. But 20% + Picnic = 100%.
Sure enough. It was raining when we got up. It was raining when we arrived at Fremont BART and it was pouring on the way over to the park. When we pulled up, driven by Bob, the rest of the family was already there under a little "easy up" awning that my mom had brought. I was totally unsurprised that she was determined to have her picnic anyway.
And we did. And it was good. There were tasty chicken wings, chilled shrimp (a little too chilled), home-cooked bread (a little salty due to a mistake between teaspoons and tablespoons), pasta salad, home-cooked brownies, and dark-chocolate covered strawberries. My mom said a few times it was decadent, and she was entirely right. Very delicious too.
It was a bit cold there, even out of the rain. I know several of us were shivering during the meal. But the rain stopped a bit afterward. This let me mom let all (three) of her dogs out and we hiked up around the lake a bit. It's just a gorgeous park, as a lot of the ones just over the hills east of us are. There was tons of greenery, lots of tall trees. The lake is huge. We didn't hike that far, but we went a bit. Then we watched the dogs frolic in the water a bit.
One of the dogs is a new pup named Hope. Just five months old. She was just the cutest thing ever, so energetic and fun-loving. She just loved running around with the older (and bigger) dogs while they played. She actually reminded me of Lucy a bit, because she's so rambunctious too.
When the rain started to threaten again, we headed back to cars. Jason and Lisa, who live north of us, gave us a ride back home. Ironically by the time we returned to Berkeley it was all sunshine and blue skies. So it goes.
Anyway, a fun day.
We were a bit concerned about the weather. The weather reports all week had been predicting a chance of rain on Sunday. Not much of a chance. About 20%. But 20% + Picnic = 100%.
Sure enough. It was raining when we got up. It was raining when we arrived at Fremont BART and it was pouring on the way over to the park. When we pulled up, driven by Bob, the rest of the family was already there under a little "easy up" awning that my mom had brought. I was totally unsurprised that she was determined to have her picnic anyway.
And we did. And it was good. There were tasty chicken wings, chilled shrimp (a little too chilled), home-cooked bread (a little salty due to a mistake between teaspoons and tablespoons), pasta salad, home-cooked brownies, and dark-chocolate covered strawberries. My mom said a few times it was decadent, and she was entirely right. Very delicious too.
It was a bit cold there, even out of the rain. I know several of us were shivering during the meal. But the rain stopped a bit afterward. This let me mom let all (three) of her dogs out and we hiked up around the lake a bit. It's just a gorgeous park, as a lot of the ones just over the hills east of us are. There was tons of greenery, lots of tall trees. The lake is huge. We didn't hike that far, but we went a bit. Then we watched the dogs frolic in the water a bit.
One of the dogs is a new pup named Hope. Just five months old. She was just the cutest thing ever, so energetic and fun-loving. She just loved running around with the older (and bigger) dogs while they played. She actually reminded me of Lucy a bit, because she's so rambunctious too.
When the rain started to threaten again, we headed back to cars. Jason and Lisa, who live north of us, gave us a ride back home. Ironically by the time we returned to Berkeley it was all sunshine and blue skies. So it goes.
Anyway, a fun day.