Easter in Nevada Part 2: Family Picnic

Ben's family has a tradition of putting together a huge picnic the day before Easter. Cool locations, lots of family, a feast of crazy good food, games, exploring, repelling, Easter egg hunts, and LOTS of dirt to play with... we had a great time! 

We dyed eggs the night before the picnic, which was a lot of fun but also a lot of mess. Malcom accidentally knocked over a green dye cup- picture below.  (We all had a good laugh over it). 

 On Saturday, we all caravan-ed to the chosen picnic location (it's different every year) in mass loads of trucks and SUVs. A fire was built, chairs set out, people wandered and explored the big rocks and mountainside surrounding the campground, and Ben took the kids climbing up some rocks as well (I sort of waddled behind on easier paths).  They ended up on a big boulder overlooking he campground and valley with Ben's brother Sam, his fiance Jessica, and cousin Sage. Malcom looked down off the boulder and asked, "How do we get down from here?" Sam told him they could climb down on a rope, and then  Malcom shouted down at all the family setting up the picnic below, "Hey! Someone get  us a rope! We need to get down!!". It might have been a moment that was only funny if you're there for, but it was hilarious. Of course, they just climbed back down the way they had gone up.

Sam later set up some repelling gear and a handful of people got to repel.  Ben helped at the bottom of the rope (I can't think of the term at the moment)... Malcom and Calvin thought it was the coolest thing ever.

In this photo, Calvin is showing me the rope going up the ledge... and then he realizes that I'm pointing a camera at him, and he stops to pose. :)

The boys and some other cousins plus Betsy waiting for someone to come down.

 Ben's sister Betsy climbing down.

I didn't very good pictures during the Easter egg hunt. I'll admit I was ready for a massive nap, and those kids are fast! I did get a few photos of Grandma Doreen helping Calvin find eggs. Malcom was darting all over the place, so I didn't get many of him.

The one fuzzy pic I got of both kids looking for eggs, and also a pic of the boys together. Look how dirty they are!

Ben repelled a few times after the egg hunt, first going down the normal way, and then going down the "commando" way (front first facing down... I wasn't a fan of that one: his face is too handsome to risk breaking it!). This one uploaded crazy blurry, but I'm too lazy to fix it at the moment. :)

After the feast was over and the repelling gear packed up, most people either sat around chatting, or retreated to a riveting game of horseshoes. Many of the kids played some t-ball... Malcom had an unfortunate run in with a plastic t-ball bat (or rather, the bat ran into him). I tried to get a good picture of the resulting bruise and goose-egg, but he was covered in so much dirt it was hard to do. 

See what looks like a patch of dirt above his right eye? That's actually a bruise/goose-egg from the bat. 

It's a good thing Malcom has such a great dad to comfort him. I'd need a good hug after something like that too!

After the t-ball bat incident, Malcom wasn't too thrilled by anyone or anything and really just wanted to go home to Grandpa's house. We were all tired anyway, so the boys and I (and Betsy) were some of the first to leave. 

Despite the end, it was a great day and I think we were all very happy that we were able to make it down for the family Easter picnic. It was a first for me and the boys, Ben hadn't been able to make it since we were dating. Hopefully we'll be able to go more often then every 6 or 7 years or so... haha.