Picnic Day 2011

On Saturday, the Edwards and I went to campus for Picnic Day. There was talk last year of canceling this year's festivities because of the violence and high number of arrests due to alcohol abuse, but it was decided to amp up sobriety enforcement and emphasize the "family event" idea instead. From what I could tell, it was a success. The school paper reported that over 75,000 people were in Davis for Picnic Day this year. Unfortunately, one person died that night--a 2010 graduate of UCD fell and hit his head while at a party. No one knows, yet, whether alcohol caused the fall.

At about 10am, we loaded the umbrella stroller, snacks, water bottles, sunscreen, and Eddie into the bike trailer and headed downtown. First, we stopped at a bike shop to buy an extra bike lock. You just never know what crazy people might do to your bike if they are drunk enough...and I didn't want to get stuck walking home if some idiot stole the bike trailer if I didn't have it separately locked up (normally I only lock my bike). Then we went to the bank and picked up some bacon breakfast burritos at a coffeeshop.To avoid navigating our bikes through campus, we parked the bikes at the north end of the quad and popped Eddie into the stroller. But we decided to have our breakfast picnic on the quad since it wasn't too crowded yet.

Then we walked over to the street to see the tail end of the Picnic Day parade. We were so happy to run into Pa (Dyani's sister-in-law)! After that we headed over to the Hoagland lawn to register Eddie at the "lost kids" booth, just in case we got separated. No one there knew anything about a parent-child meet up, so we moved on to see the medical helicopter and trucks at the firestation. Eddie was mildly impressed. While the knobs, dials, and levers on the trucks were fun for a minute, he was mostly interested in running around the grass, climbing steps, and checking out every single downspout and stormdrain we passed. This kid is DEFINTELY a Bower.Edward and finally dragged him to Hutchison field to see all the dog exhibits. We got to kiss a pit bull, pet lots of random breeds, and see the amazing border collies herding sheep. At some point we met up with Cassie and Leila to go to the petting zoo. Of course, my child wasn't too keen on petting the animals. Nooooooooooooo..........he wanted to inspect their poop and containers of water and food.

"Oh...water! Mama! Water!"

As soon as I strapped him into the stroller after the petting zoo, he fell asleep. Edward wanted a fruity treat so we went to the air conditioned and relative calm of the coffeehouse in the Memorial Union for mango smoothies and cookies while Eddie snoozed. Then Edward went to the women's tennis match while Eddie ate some pizza and ran around on the bleachers. Did you know that Keens on a toddler boy are VERY LOUD on an aluminum set of bleachers? It is especially noticeable during a quiet tennis game when the toddler constantly yells "Uggle!" and points to his embarrassed uncle sitting up at the top of the bleachers.

We headed home after the game was over. Dave had stayed home to work to set up his new drill press and work on the window trim. I took a much-needed nap and then us Bowers biked to Nugget to buy supplies for a BBQ steak dinner. It was a great--but exhausting--Saturday! Next year should be more fun since I think Eddie will partake in the activities rather than the infrastructure.