Two Picnics in Five Days

We drove up to Heber City last week to check out a lodge that The Husband is using for their upcoming Men's Retreat. (He'll call it Men's Camp but when you're staying in a brand new, 6500 square foot, gorgeous mansion well, you're retreating. Not camping.) We decided to pack a lunch, lug the dog, and have a picnic by the side of the river. Then we planned on having the dog fetch things out of the river but it was running pretty swiftly and he'd only play in the water right by the shoreline. I was fairly thankful for this wise choice on his part as I didn't particularly want to be chasing my helpless dog down river.
It was moving faster than it looks in this picture. I promise. I mean, it wasn't raging and there weren't class V rapids but still...

My boys loved exploring the riverbank and this bridge. Their mom They also really liked throwing rocks off of it. In fact, The Rock Star had to practically be pried away. He would have gladly stayed all day.

Then, yesterday, (The Husband's day off) we had a morning meeting. I packed another lunch and when the meeting was over we headed to Wheeler Farm. After we looked around at the animals for awhile we ate our lunch by the river creek that runs through the farm's border. And then we let the boys play in the tiny streams that trickle through the grounds.

The streams are murky. But it was 95 degrees and the stream was chilly. I bathed them thoroughly when we got home because, well, there is a multitude of geese and ducks and they leave their dropping everywhere!

No one really wanted to leave. But there was the little fact that The Little Buddy insisted on eating sand again and I've already changed the diaper that proves it. It's like his treat of choice these days. He loves it. It's a problem.

And The Rock Star kept making super good decisions. Like jumping from three feet up into four inches of water covered sharp rocks. And then not sticking the landing.

But the splashing. The wading. The crawling. The cooling off and relaxing. It all does a boy good on a hot summer afternoon.