130th Anniversary Picnic

Our church has an annual picnic, and this year we also celebrated our 130th anniversary. There were several moonwalks, a rock climbing wall, horseback riding, a hayride and lots of other activities for kids of all ages. I manned the cotton candy machine for about an hour while Trevor made snow cones.

When they started setting up the rock wall, the line formed immediately. Nathan was near the front, and he was really excited. Gracie ran over to him, and moments later came running back across the lawn, sobbing. I had been talking to someone, and wasn't watching her every move, so I thought she might be hurt. I grabbed her up and between hitched breaths and hiccuping sobs discovered that Nathan told her she couldn't climb the wall.

I figured that she was too small to do it, so we walked back over to find out if she would be able to take a turn. Our friend Curtis was one of the men supervising the wall, and he told me that she would be okay, as long as I stayed under her and within reach. She got in line and we waited. When she was up, they cinched the harness to its smallest size and she was ready to go.

People, I started to rethink the whole people-came-from-monkeys line of thought. Seriously. For all of her klutziness, she was like a spider monkey on that wall! She had a blast, and before I knew it, she was out of my reach, so Curtis got harnessed in and stayed close to her. She climbed about 2/3 of the way up before she lost her balance and came down. All of the adults on the ground were amazed at how brave and fearless she was. I was so proud of my baby girl...she was incredible!

After the rock wall, the kids did some horseback riding, then some moonwalk jumping, then went on a hayride. Between each event, there was much cotton candy eating and snow cone slurping. You know...the stuff dreams are made of when you are 4 and 7! A limitless supply of refined sugar and lots of open space to run it off.

We didn't stay for the potluck, because Grace had not had a nap, and it was starting to show. We said our goodbyes and headed home. It was a wonderful afternoon!