BBQ's and Picnic's

So just going to do a little catch-up. I had mentioned a few posts back that We had a Canada day BBQ which we do every year. I tried the first year we moved here to PG to attend the Cities celebrations. The thing is that when you have a lot of kids that are very active and curious they don't stay in one place very well so I was a nervous wreck by the time half an hour was up so we decided from that day on that we would make our own fun. So now we present our 3rd Annual Canada Day BBQ. ( to be honest I was going to say 4th but Mike reminded me that it was only 3... must be because of all the other fun things we do with our friends and family :) )

So we had a few new comers to the BBQ this year that we decided to move it out to Wilkins Park instead of having it at home. I am still undecided if that was actually easier or not... certainly not cheaper.. But oh sooo much fun! We missed some of the usual people who come but they had unforeseen things happen this year. So this post is mostly for them so they can feel like they were there. It is also for those who we can not see every year to and for those who came. New friends and old friends we celebrate you on this day too!

So as with any good BBQ we start with the food! MMmmmmm Yummy did we sure have some great dishes this year!! You see we always hold it as a type of potluck since none of us are really rolling in any kind of dough. It always works out great that we have a wonderful amount of variety. I think this years was the BEST!! Nathan and Megan spent the day and made some amazing burgers for the grill that were so yummy and juicy!

Here is our Grill master this year Nathan standing next to my well used and loved BBQ we dragged out to the park. And that pillar of yummy smell you see coming from the grill is the teaser to his amazing burgers.

There were hotdogs as well for those kids that like something a little smaller to eat.

 

We had fruit and Salads galore! And my favorite every year is the watermelon... it still amazes me how I could not like it as a kid?? Thank-you Sam for making me crave it everyday I was pregnant with you :)

We had a ton of salads, including but not limited to potato, coleslaw, and my requested one from Candi GREEK! I have been told about her greek salad for years now but only ever had her broccoli salad which is so yummy too but this year I wanted to finally get to try her greek.. which is just as good as I have been told!

So with that and many more foods people filled their plates we feasted! And many people had to come back for seconds and thirds just to get to try everything.

It was soo good everyone ate all they could and more. And we loved how full our tummy's got!

Next came dessert! Oh we had cookies and pies and best of all SMORES! Oh how I missed making these yummy treats with the kids as we haven't been able to go camping like we would like to in the past few years. Everyone Loved roasting the gooey marshmallows and having some old fashioned fun!

Some of the younger ones didn't even bother with the graham crackers and chocolate as the roasted marshmallows were just to tempting and boy did they get some good sticky fun out of that!

Even some of the adults got into the sticky fun, LOL!

Tommy even tried to have his own personal marshmallow stuffing contest.. He was able to get 7 big ones stuffed in that mouth of his!!

But the best part of the whole day was getting to spend time with our friends and family. All of them bring such joy to our lives!

And even though sometimes someone would get hurt there was always someone else there to give them a special hug to make it all better.

And all these special people that came made the games, water and conversation that much more fun!

One "Big Kid" even found a place for climbing :)

Even our new little furry friend that joined us had fun and the kids all took turns walking and running with her

And then we took that perfect day and made it 2 by going to a picnic in Fort George Park the next day with the ward for our potluck. Where we enjoyed the company of more friends friends. It was a GREAT way to celebrate the birthday of our country and even more the freedom we have to do all these amazing things everyday!