Picnic in the Park

I seem to come up with my best ideas at night, usually right before I go to bed. I decided before falling asleep to hit up Trader Joe’s to get goodies to take hubby on an impromptu/surprise picnic.

Before I got home, I took my car for a much-needed car wash. I still had a ton of salt on my car from the snow we got last weekend, and it needed to come off asap. My car looked so much better afterwards, so I was really happy I was able to squeeze that in.

I used up more of the leftover cooked chicken from Thursday night’s roast chicken breast dinner to make chicken salad for moi and a chicken wrap for hubby. I measured out the amount of chicken I thought I could eat in a wrap and added celery, red onion, mayo, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I didn’t measure anything, I just eyeballed the whole thing. The chicken salad came out quite good!

Some celery I picked up at TJ’s this AM for my chicken salad and for hubby to munch on.

My wrap pre-wrapping. I put havarti cheese, chicken salad, and some organic green leaf lettuce on mine.

I also made some taboulleh so we’d have a nice, refreshing + healthy side (instead of chips).

The park was super busy but so beautiful, we didn’t care.

The weather was in the upper 70’s F and the sky was super blue. The wind kept things cooler, but we still found a nice semi-shady spot.

The park was pretty full with people laid out all around on towels and blankets, but we still managed to find a nice spot to set-up camp.

We got to use a duvet I actually made by hand a couple years ago. It looks like a quilt and it is except I left the middle un-filled and one side is closed up with buttons so you can stick a comforter inside. We’ve never used it as a duvet, but it has helped us out on numerous outdoor activities. 🙂

View to our left.

View straight ahead (hubby playing with Bails).

View to the right.

View above.

I took my shoes off to get comfy.

My chicken salad + lettuce wrap.

A closer look.

Some raw veggies (baby carrots, celery, a piece of organic green pepper) to snack on with lunch.

My first-ever attempt at making taboulleh. It came out great! I think we’ll be eating a lot more of this since it seems to be a great way to use up leftover fresh parsley. Not to mention, it’s simply delicious and a pretty healthy snack. My friends at the Mediterranean restaurant told me taboulleh is very cleansing, too.

Dessert was a chocolate chip cookie – I picked these up at TJ’s this AM and they are sooooo good!

Make that 2 cookies. Yea, it’s another picture of the first cookie, but I forgot to take a picture of the second one and quickly gobbled it down. Oopsie!

Anywho, the cookies are amazing! If you see them at TJ’s, give them a go. They’re soft, but not too-soft and firm but not crisp. They rocked! I wanted to eat the whole bag. I read the label on the back and even noticed they’re even made with wheat flour! Nice! I am considering attempting a run later today so I can work some more cookies into my day…heehee.

We had a nice big container of water to drink. I wanted to get an Orangina at TJ’s but already spent about $20 and didn’t want to spend too much on one trip since we’re a little front-heavy on the spending of our March Food money.

Hubby ate his food pretty quickly, as usual, so I got to enjoy watching he and Bailey playing fetch while I finished up my lunch.

I know I had a great time and I think hubby and Bailey had a pretty awesome time, too. It was the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.