Weekend Review: Picnics and Presents

This weekend was our annual company picnic. It used to be called the annual "summer" picnic, but we kept pushing the date back farther into September to accommodate for everyone's schedule (no one in northern MN likes to give up a summer weekend!), so now it's just the picnic.

Although the weather was beautiful - not a cloud in the sky - it definitely was not summer weather. Everyone showed up in jackets and sweatshirts, and I don't think it hit 70 until very late in the day.

This is the second year that I've been on the picnic planning committee, so I get to show up early and go home late.

Teamwork makes the dream work....

We always have the picnic at a nearby town hall that has a nice big kitchen for our caterers, a huge playground for the kids, and a large backyard for the bouncy house. Because, really, it's all about the bouncy house. We also host a bean bag tournament (sometimes also called cornhole?), and the winning team gets $100. Not too shabby!

This year we also did site tours, because our mine is really coming along. It's been under construction for awhile, but this year we have almost completed buildings and equipment. Like a real mine! We got to stop and take pictures with some of our newly acquired mine trucks.

I'm the ant-like figure in blue, holding the speck-like figure in pink.

Just in case you can't tell, they are huge. The tire is twice as tall as me. Pretty impressive.

My sister-in-law also works for my company, so we did a group photo.

The company also does giveaways, like gift cards, an extra day of PTO, and "big" prizes like tickets to sporting events. This year, I won tickets to a U of Minnesota - Duluth (UMD) hockey game! I never win anything, so I was pretty stoked!

It turned out to be a pretty great picnic, and I think everyone had fun. That's the most important part.

Speaking of presents...(subtle, right?)

My birthday is in less than 1 month! This year, we will be spending my entire birthday in the car, driving to Detroit. Nothing like forced bonding via a 12 hour road trip, right? 

Since we're taking this trip, kind of for my birthday (and kind of for the little marathon I'm running 2 days later), I told Travis no presents.

But then my Garmin watch started to malfunction, and made a liar out of me. I mean, I don't need a GPS watch, but it sure makes a lot of running easier. So I bought myself an early birthday present.

Forerunner 220! This watch is so sweet. It wirelessly uploads my saved runs to my phone, and I can also program workouts to it. So no more staring at my watch for 30 second intervals or whatever. I just plug the info into the website, send it to my phone, and it beeps at me for intervals, rest periods, etc. So awesome! I think the best part so far is that it it finds GPS satellites so fast. Like, I step out the door and it's already found it. My old watch would take up to 5 minutes to find a satellite. There I'd be, pacing in front of my watch staring at the screen, waiting. 

In my defense, I have a new friend from running camp that works at Garmin and helped me get a pretty sweet discount. So, it's not all that bad. Really....

I've used it twice now, and I'm definitely in love.

So besides some more running, football (Go Vikes!), and some housework, that about wraps up our weekend.

How was your weekend? Does your company host annual picnics or other parties?