To end the School Year and celebrate the summer, we invited
everyone in the TAP family including our TAP kids, their siblings and parents
as well as TAP team to our first picnic.
It turned out to be a wonderful day and
absolutely great event. We all met at the parking lot and waited for a
while for our two missing families. After contacting them and knowing that they
will catch up with us, we started our hike to the Falls.
It seemed to be a perfect day as it was not
terribly hot and yet sunny and warm. The kids were curious how long it
will take us to reach the falls as we walked the trail. Everything seemed
to feel green, bursting with life. Everyone was excited to reach for the
falls and curious. We saw a beetle and butterflies on the way.
Carlo who was at the front of our group kept asking about how long it would
take us to the falls. He wondered why he could not hear it. It was a 1.5
km walk through the forest that everyone walked with ease.
Closer to the falls, Fergus got excited and was
leading our group. As we got to the falls our “lost” family, with Jacky,
Megan and Dominick joined us and we were finally all together.
All kids headed straight for the actual waterfalls
so parents had no choice but to go with them and explore the stream (that
almost everyone crossed) to reach the ruins of the old mill.
How much fun it was to cool off our hands
in the water, hear the sounds of the waterfall and bask in the coolness of the
natural shade and oasis that was before us. We stayed there for a while
touching the wet mosses on the rocks, jumping through the creek and just being
together in the nature. Everyone seemed to just absorb the beauty.
We started feeling hungry and it was time to
have a snack. But the snack was in our cars at the parking lot where
there were many large picnic areas. We walked back and so close to the
parking lot, little Abby, Ian’s sister fell and scraped her knees. It was
good that her dad was right there to comfort her and by the cars we quickly
cleaned up her wounds and put bandages. She stopped crying and joined the
girls’ play. The picnic was set up under a large tree on three picnic
tables. Ian’s family even had their own table to contribute. Thanks
to Gabriella, Connor’s mom, who coordinated the food we had delicious snacks
that all kids were able to eat as she made sure they were gluten and dairy
free. We had Gabriella’s delicious lentil/rice balls, great veggies and
salad, hummus and guacamole, chips and popcorn lots of fruit and even Filipino Empanada that Carlo’s family brought for those
who could eat wheat and meat, they were great! What was amazing about our
picnic is that the kids really played.
Our TAP boys, Carlo, Ian, Connor and Fergus
played together their own game of being Pokemon Characters and tried Frisbee
too. Unfortunately, accidently the Frisbee hit Fergus’ side forehead, he
got hurt but he quickly recovered and went back to play. The girls played
dolphins on the blue mat, they also blew bubbles with Dominick and tried
Badminton. Fergus played Badminton too. Katryne and Kaushal along
with Nathan stared playing volleyball and we invited parents too, Chris and
Jacky, Ian’s parents and Gabriella joined in. Ferg and Samantha along
with their daughter Klara played Badminton and so did Carlo’s parents. We
had time to talk and connect as well as we rested and had more food. At
the end, kids had fun with water-balloons. Connor seemed to be particularly
intrigued and even helped the girls to toss them until they popped and
sprinkled cool water…
The picnic was a great success, no one wanted
to leave two hours after the planned departure time… and we made sure to
conclude that we must keep meeting like this to connect and to be together to
support and build our community. Thank you everyone who came, let’s do it
again soon.
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