Luci's travel group picnic!

Oh, I know what you're thinking....I've become one of those bloggers who gets tired of it and never posts. NO!!!! I've just been super busy lately, and to my followers, I apologize for keeping you waiting! At last, another post! In early August, I took the girls to Syracuse for Luci's annual travel group picnic. This picnic has been held for the last few years, but for one reason or another, I had never been able to attend it, which is amazingly unfair to Luci!! So this year I refused to book any photo shoots or weddings on the appointed day and made every effort to go! I'm so glad I did!!! And I will be going every year from now on!! Dean decided to stay home as we had some pressing construction work to do under a time crunch from our home owners insurance, so it was just me and the girls. Below, is all but one of the girls in Luci's group who made it this year! From left, Lucy G., Natalie R., Juliet C., Lana S., Carina W., Luci, Meilin L., and Sydney V. Missing is Claire B. who is painfully shy and didn't want to get in the picture. You may recall the pictures from Drew's travel group picnic (Claire's older sister May is in Drew's group) when I had to sneak up on her for any pictures! Hee hee! She's such a cutie, too! But I managed to get a couple of her later in the day which are posted below!


Here's a shot of most of the kids, several were playing elsewhere and we had to catch who we could! L to R: May (Claire's older sister!), Natalie, Mali (Meilin's sister), Lucy, Juliet, Lana, Carina, Luci, Meilin, Sydney and Drew. Missing are Juliet's brothers, Claire, Lana's sister, and Carina's brother.

Family picture time! First up, the V's. Sydney, Jeff and Diane.

David, Lisa and Natalie R.

Me and the girls.

Nina and Lana S. (Mia and her Daddy, Michael had to leave earlier for a sports practice.)

The L's. Brian and Sherri with Meilin (L) and Mali (R).

The B.'s. Rick and Laura with Claire (L) and May (R). THERE'S Claire!!!

The G.'s, Maria and Lucy. Luci talked non-stop about "the other Lucy with the same name but spelled with a Y" before the picnic and she was dying to introduce herself! I think she was just fascinated with someone else that had her name! But meet they did and are now happy little pen-pals!

The W.'s, Steve and Carina. Carina's brother Caleb and her mom couldn't make the picnic this year.

The C.'s. John and Amy with Daniel (L), Juliet and Christian (R).

Lunch time! Pizza! Yes, there were adult picnic tables there, but it wouldn't have been such a cute picture if Rick B. and Brian L. had sat at one of those!

Moms Nina, Laura and Amy looking over the food table.

Natalie LOVES strawberries and polished off most of them!

Thankfully, we had a some gloriously warm weather for the event and the facility's pool came in quite handy!

Natalie

Drew and Luci

Meilin and Sydney. (Sherri, if I label your girls incorrectly, just let me know!)

Lana

Meilin

Juliet

Rick and Claire

Sydney

Lana and Drew

Claire and May

Lucy being a big ham!

Luci decides she needs some sun!

L to R: Carina, Luci, Drew, Juliet, Sydney, Lucy, Natalie (in back), Lana, Meilin, Mali, May and Claire. (Click on the picture to see it supersized)

Sydney's daddy, Jeff got a really cool tattoo of Sydney on his arm! Dean actually wants to do the same thing of Drew and Luci!

The picnic wrapped up with a large cookie "cake".

Mali is in charge of cutting!

I am so pleased that I was able to make it finally! And I'll be going every year from now on!! Luci was able to get to know some of the girls in her group better and even made a new pen-pal friend, Lucy G.! (Both my girls LOVE getting mail!) Most importantly, Luci has something that is hers alone, her travel group, and we value it as much as we do Drew's group and by attending these picnics we are showing her that. And since Luci is such a social and friendly kid, she is building some great friendships, too! I really look forward to next year's picnic! A big thank you to Sherri, who works at the facility where the picnic is held every year. Without her organizing this event every year, we may not have one! My organizational skills aren't the greatest, but I've been asked to organize a February weekend in Lake George at the indoor waterpark for this coming winter. So far, I've been a little busy to get to it, but I'll do my best guys!

Today's Quotes:

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things. ~Plato (and what lovely "things" these kids all are, huh? hee, hee!)

Similarities create friendship's while differences hold them together. ~Unknown