A gorgeous evening by the lake

Sunday night we wanted to go see the Mad City Ski team show. Doug and I have been fans since moving to Madison five years ago. We can't go too frequently because I have band on Sunday nights and just because we're busy in general, but we try to get there a few times each summer.

In brainstorming logistics to go, we had to consider the fact that with a 6 p.m. start time, we either have to eat a really early dinner or a late one. Add to that the fact that the shows have been growing in popularity every year and parking as well as seating on the shoreline is hard to come by if you're late (and by late, I mean on time), we came up with the perfect solution: A picnic dinner by the lake before the show!

Chomping on a tomato.

It turned out that I'd planned a good meal for a picnic. We had salad with our last produce from the farmer's market and I made italian beef as well, thinking that would be just as good cold as it is hot. I was right. We took along some chips too and stopped at the PDQ for some quick drinks and headed to the park! For Allie we packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as well as newly discovered treats tomatoes and cucumbers that we had for the salad.

We got to the park just before 5 p.m. and got a perfect close parking spot! Despite getting there so early, however, we didn't get a super close spot for the picnic to the show. They've added bleachers so to spread out we had to move down the shoreline a bit. We did get a great view, we were just too far away to hear the announcing. It was OK. We loved it even without hearing it.

There were a bunch of kids around us and Allie divided her attention between them and the skiiers.

This is what she saw...

...and her face as she saw it!



It was hot, but as the sun started setting behind the buildings downtown, it felt pretty nice with the breeze. We had a great time and then it was so easy and quick to get in the car to get home! Allie was plenty tired because she was up kind of late, but since we had our picnic, we were able to just put her straight into bed when we got home. We most definitely hope to do this at least one more time before the summer is out!