A Little Work Week Family Time

Every year our office has a picnic in July at Minnehaha Falls. I work for a very large corporation but my office is made up of about 50 people so it's intimate and every one knows everyone.

And the food line is never long.

We all take about three hours out of our crazy busy schedules, ride the train a few miles over to the park, and enjoy lunch and a badminton tournament.

This year there was a scheduling conflict that arose at the last minute and caused half of the office to have to stay back. It was sad they would not be able to join us but the planning committee ended up inviting Shawn and his little daycare.  I think they just saw it as a way to meet Cupcake. But I got to spend a summer afternoon in the park with my family and that's awesome!

Shawn joined a badminton team and had a good time bonding with the people I spend 50 hours a week with.

The girls, Heidi, Sophia, and Piper (or H/S/P as I have started to call them) spent the afternoon playing on a stage near our picnic area, playing bean bags and ladder golf, and tossing the badminton birdies around.

Cupcake spent the day sleeping on my best friend Shannon's lap.

Before I had to head back to the office we took the girls over to see the falls.

When we are in a drought the falls can be down to a trickle. But we have had a high rainfall summer so they were rushing and are so beautiful.

Sophia and Piper have been here with their dad before but I think this was Heidi's first time. They liked leaning over the wall to see below. I was having a heart attach and kept pacing around behind them. It's amazing this photo is not blurry from all my shaking!

They were also looking at this awesome snapping turtle hanging out on the foot trail on the other side of the wall. And Shawn regaled them with his stories about two snappers they caught as kids and brought home to live in a bucket outside their house. I think they were Henry Hissinger 1 and 2.

The girls love hearing stories about Shawn's childhood and all the unsupervised adventures they went on!

We had a great time but after a bit I had to get back to work so we piled in the van and headed back downtown they dropped my off at my office. Let me tell you, it is extremely hard to go back to work after hanging out at this beautiful park with me awesome co-workers and my family all afternoon!

But on the bright side, I only had to work 2 more hours and then I was off for a 3 day weekend!

Hopefully I will post about our very wet weekend at The Swamp tomorrow.

Hasta Luego,

Kara