Wow, when I got on the blog to do this post I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’ve put something out here; plus I forgot to publish the last post that I prepared. So I went ahead and published it so that I can move on to this one.
This was the 20th year of the Steele Picnic and even though we didn’t have the largest number of attendees ever, the ones that did come were a quality group:) We got to meet Berkleigh for the first time.
For us the very best person attending was Emma. She had a bit of a rough morning at home but she did such a good job visiting with everyone. She is definitely ‘Grandpa’s girl’ but I was so glad that she was glad to see me too.
The agenda for the picnic in the past has always been eating all of the great food, feeling stuffed and then going out to ride horses and/or shoot blue rock. This year we decided with all of the great nieces and nephews being a little older we needed to have something special for them, so we bought a Big Ol’Bouncer Bounce house. I think it was a hit for most of them. Unfortunately the weight limit on it was 100lbs per person so some of the adults were kinda bummed.
Big Ol’ Bouncer
After eating we sat around visiting and I was kind of wondering if anyone would even be interested in riding horses this year, except for Ryli, I knew she would want to ride Frosty. But it wasn’t long and Kalie brought Libby in and said “ask Aunt Sherry”. “When are we going to ride horses.” Yee Haw, I’m not one of the few horse lovers in the family. We saddled up all three of the horses so everyone could ride.
Chad and Ollie rode together. Barbie also took a turn riding.
Emma had her first horse ride.
Jillian was busy giving rides on Brandy and Ryli is riding Frosty.
Jim and Diane both rode. The person I was most impressed with this year was Lucas. I gave him the usual instructions about handling a horse and he did a fantastic job. On his second ride he even trotted Frosty a little. By next year he should be able to reach the stirups a little better.
The biggest surprise this year was probably seeing Aaron and Kalie both ride. Aaron knows how to ride, he just hasn’t ridden in a long time. I could tell Kalie was a little apprehensive at first, but she did a great job as well.
Mark and Chris came. Jillian showed them and us how to do acupunture. While Chris volunteered Mark, Jillian just did a quick stick on herself.
Kelly, Steve and Nick, some of Jillian’s friends from Omaha, made it down again. I enjoyed visiting with them getting caught up on how they are doing.
Denny Russell and Isaak came too. It was great to visit with Newt, we haven’t seen him in quite awhile. As always Dennis helped run the shooting range. He does a great job with the kids . . . and the adults.
The weather with year was perfect, the new ‘Dance Hall’ made the event much easier to prepare for and it was so nice to see family and friends. We couldn’t have asked for a better day!!