Life's a Picnic

     Today, the girls and I went and took Nate away from work for a bit for a picnic lunch. There is a place at the airport (which is less than 5 minutes from Nate's office) where you can have a picnic and watch the planes take off and land. There is an observation deck that has speakers that allow you to listen to the people in the control tower talking to the pilots in the planes. I find it really cool. And it's a nice place for a picnic away from the office.

     So I've got the 'who' and the 'where' and the 'what' and the 'when' all covered, but then there's the 'how' of it all. I wanted to be able to do some sub sandwiches, but I didn't want them to be all mushy by the time we sat down to eat...because first I'd have to construct all the sandwiches, then get the girls ready to go, then drive the 30 minutes to Nate's work, pick him up, then drive to our spot and then finally unpack the food to eat...so you can see how the sandwiches would be kind of yucky by then. So here is what I came up with. :)


     I went ahead and cut up some lettuce and tomatoes, and then sliced up some black olives and pickles. I found a divided container in the cabinet that I had bought with the intentions of using it for Nate's lunches. But it only had 3 compartments...and I needed 4. So I made it into a 4-compartment container by using a damp papertowel folded up and then placed down the center of the largest compartment. :)

     Then I put that container down into the cooler first, with 2 ice packs on top.

     I pulled out a couple old Chinese take-out containers and used the first one for some slices of Havarti and Provolone cheeses. This container went on top of one of the ice packs.

     The second take-out container I layered in some deli-sliced ham and deli-sliced roast beef. This container went next to the cheeses, on top of the second ice pack.

Both containers on top of an ice pack.

     With this "layer" of food in the cooler being of the utmost importance to keep cool, both containers got another ice pack on top.

Then it was time to slice open the sub rolls and pack them into a container to keep them fresh.

Then this container went on top of the other ice packs.

     I couldn't figure out any way to bring only a little of the mustards and mayo, so I just decided to bring the whole bottles in a gallon-size ziplock bag.

     I put in some snack-bags of goldfish, pretzels and cut up apples along with a container of baby carrots and then two packages of butterfly cakes. :) And all of that went on top of the container of rolls.

     Turns out I completely spaced getting any paper plates so I packed 4 small plastic plates that the girls usually use. I topped it all off with some paper towels for napkins. And we were ready to go!

We found ourselves a table with an umbrella and got ourselves settled. We all put our own sandwiches together and dug in!

     After our bellies had their fill, the girls played in the little play area and we went on top of the observation deck. The girls were excited to be there and watch for planes on the runway (behind them).

     From the observation deck, you can see the control tower off to the left while you listen to the tower communicating with the pilots. It's pretty cool. :)

    

Look! A plane!

     So the condiments stayed cold, the meats and cheeses stayed cold, we had plenty to fill our sandwiches with, the rolls weren't mushy, and we had a great lunch break with Nate. :) Now that I know how well it works to pack picnics this way, we will definitely be doing it again sometime. :)