Summer at its best!
Wow, last weekend’s weather was certainly long overdue! We celebrated our first full weekend of sun by having a family beach barbeque at Spanish Banks. My sister Jenn planned the barbeque and it was a hit. Imagine a hot, sunny afternoon at the beach with four dogs, three kids, a whole slew of adults and a cooler full of goodies. We had a feast. Jenn made tadoori chicken (which turned out fantastic on the barbeque), her famous potato salad, and a summer succotash salad. She topped off the meal with her home-made carrot. She’s a regular Martha Stewart (except for the prison part!).
It was so nice to take advantage of the weather. And judging by the number of cars in the parking lots, everyone else in the Lower Mainland felt the same. Despite having to battle for parking (which was compounded with the Folk Fest happening at the same time), the effort was well worth the rewards. The kids had fun burying each other in the sand and splashing around in the water. Jenn’s boyfriend Ed is the biggest kid of them all. He chases them around and keeps them laughing the whole night through.
While we were sitting on our beach blanket enjoying the food, company and view, we noticed an obvious difference between the experienced picnicers and the not so experienced ones. The amateurs (like us) were a little disorganized - no table, very few chairs and stuff scattered everywhere. The experts, on the other hand were very together. The typical experienced picnicer had a picnic table, multiple habatchis (the die-hards had full-sized portable barbeques), a couple of coolers, fold-up chairs, music, umbrellas and a table full of goodies. We had two small habatchis (we realized afterward that it’s a good idea to one habatchi for every four people), a blanket, a couple of fold-up chairs, and really good food (which made up for everything else). So being our first big barbeque outside of a home, we fared quite well. Next time will be even better. If we get more sun, we’ll be experts at this by the end of the summer for sure!