refreshment in the form of a picnic

What's a Mama to do when the day's been hot, the children have been cranky, and supper sounds like so-much-work?

A picnic!

With a no-cook picnic packed in a shopping bag, we headed to meet Daddy for dinner al fresco. (Picnics on Stanford's campus are one of our new favorite things. Dinner or lunch --- both are entirely enjoyable. A highlight of our week, even. Perhaps sometime we'll try breakfast.)

It was a perfectly refreshing spot. Watching the water and the clouds made us feel calmer. And just as we arrived, the evening breeze picked up -- natural air-conditioning for our meal.

We parked ourselves -- all five of us -- on the edge of the fountain. There were people swimming in the fountain (ah, students), but we settled for dangling our feet while we munched on sugar snap peas, carrots, strawberries, raspberries, and rotisserie chicken. Indy didn't eat much of that stuff, but he did dip his feet, too.

We ate. The girls ran about. We splashed a bit more. And as the light began to fade, we left, satisfied with our supper, refreshed by the water, and pleased with the pleasant end to the day.