Have You Been on a Picnic?

my husband loves picnics... i could do without them. i have to say the biggest story in the underside of joy was not in the picnics for me. i felt it was almost pushed by the author... the real story was in ella and the kids and joe and his parents. i wish the author had pushed the history behind the grandparents more... instead of the whole picnic thing.

I love picnics! My kids and I get take-out a lot and go to a local park to eat and play. Does it count as a picnic if you don't cook the food yourself?

Love taking picnics to the park in the summer! Buys us a bit more time before we have to head back home for naps and reality, and there's something great about sitting under a tree and eating. One day I hope to get a proper picnic basket and do a fancy one - cheeses, meats, fruit....an adult picnic. :)

I love taking a picnic lunch when we plan on being away from home for too long on the weekends. Even though it's cold here, we take car picnics when we ski and spread it out in the back of the car and enjoy our lunch. So nice to relax!

I haven't been on a picnic is so so long. However, I really considering do it as soon as warmer weather comes this way. It seems like such a good way to reconnect with your kids and breathe in some fresh air.

I love picnicking. We've done it everywhere from our backyard to my mom's yard to state parks. I have baskets and coolers totally devoted to spring/summer/fall picnicking too. In fact, our last picnic was in January at the beach on an unseasonably warm day. As for food, it really depends on the weather -- cool salads and finger foods in the heat of summer, hot food in cooler weather.

I was sure I answered this one! I LOVE picnics. My favorites are just the ones we have just have on our deck out back or under the shade of our big oak trees. We homeschool and then read and do school work outside after. We all enjoy it.

In the summer, my boys and I have a picnic every Friday night. We head to my husband's softball games and have a picnic dinner. Since they boys are young, I stick to simple foods like sandwiches, crackers, veggies but I always try to have a special dessert treat for them!

I don't think I would visit a specialty store in my own town very much unless they had a dish I just couldn't resist. But on vacation or camping YES!! We love to go to the beach during the summer and would love to have a store that we could go get all of our picnic stuff all together and made. If we are doing a picnic close to home usually it's just sandwiches. But there is something special about doing it on vacation.

Growing up, I loved going on a picnic. And during the summer months, we would have one or two a week in our back yard.

Would I visit a specialty store? Definitely! We camp a lot, and let me tell you, if there were a store of this kind near where we camp, I would definitely visit! Local foods and the backstory behind some of those delicacies intrigue me.

I've always wanted to picnic like that, too. I've come close, but never the whole picnic experience the way Ella talks about going with Joe and the kids.

As to the store? I don't think you could keep me out of it. I'm a sucker for specialty foods and local delicacies!

When we were kids, my mom would pack picnics for trips to a local park. I look forward to doing the same with my children in a few years. Like you, I've never been to a picnic store {or really seen one locally} but I loved that Ella turned the failing family business around like that!

I've packed meals to eat somewhere else, but rarely have they been proper "picnics." There was that one time when my first husband has a dinner for two catered at a park beside a waterfall, though...if that counts as a picnic, then I've been on one, and it would be pretty hard to top.

I loved the picnic-store idea too, though.

My family would always pack a picnic when I was younger. We would stop at little tourist areas whenever we were driving and have lunch at a picnic table. I think I would definitely take advantage of a picnic store, and actually have done so in Napa. My fiance and I stopped and grabbed a variety of cheese, a sandwich, and a few small snacks and had a great spontaneous picnic.

When we travel we always pack a picnic. Not really the food hamper thing, but a cooler and a cloth bag full of goodies and supplies. Our favorite picnic food is fancy cheese, bread and grapes. Sounds silly, but the kids absolutely love it. It's like a little treat for them.

We actually just went on a picnic last week. The weather in California this year has been strangely warm so we hit up our local wineries with some friends and our son. I would not have thought wine tasting with a child would be relaxing but it was great lunching on the grass with the adults taking turns wine-tasting inside.

When my husband and I were first dating we took a little picnic on my dad's tiny/barely working boat on the intercoastal waterway. we packed mozzarella and salami sandwiches (pressed, of course) and some sodas and it was perfect. I'll always think fondly of our picnic on the water!

I haven't been on a picnic since I was a child...I also loved the picnic store and would go to one if there was one in my area. It has inspired me to make sure that going on a picnic is on our list of things to do!

Oh my, I'm such a neat freak that there is no way I could handle being on a picnic. I don't even eat my dinner outside on the patio. LOL! It doesn't help that I'm not a fan of cold food, nor a fan of the food sitting in containers and then eating them hours later. I'm weird, I know it. ;)

We got a picnic basket (completely with dishes, silverware, and napkins for 4) as a wedding present. Unfortunately, we've never used it. Not sure why; I'd love to pack up some food and head to a park for a picnic. Maybe that should be on my list of things I have to do this summer.

There are a lot of state parks in our area, so we enjoy going on hikes and then having a picnic when we're done. We love to take some kind of chicken dish with us, since they can usually serve cold. It's usually simple. I don't know if I'd ever go to a picnic store, but I do think the idea is really fun.

During the re-vamp of the store I honestly started thinking "hmmm maybe I could start a picnic store, what a great idea!!!"

We love going for picnics in the summer. And one valentine's day I made us a picnic lunch and set up a blanket and we sat on the floor in the living room :D

We do simple picnics now as the girls are young. Hopefully we'll migrate from PBJ to something a little more later on!

I love going on picnics! They're fun with the whole family, or a very romantic date with just my husband. The book made me long for warm weather and picnics. I don't think I'd go to a picnic store in my own town, too lavish for everyday needs but on vacation it would be something sweet to do.

I loved the descriptions of this store in it's grocery store and Life's A Picnic format. It reminded me so much of the small Italian grocery stores that made up my hometown. I could smell the dishes cooking!! Being a foodie I'm drawn to food in literature and while unexpected in this book it was great. I hope now that my kids are older to have many more picnics!