Iglesia de Mableton Picnic at Bent Tree

August 9, 2014

We reserved the pavilion on Lake Tamarack at Bent Tree for a church picnic for Iglesia de Mableton. This is a view of the lake from the pavilion.

This is one of a pair of does that were grazing near the beach and pavilion.

This is the other lady, grazing in the woods.

Members started arriving about 11 and the children wanted to go to the playground.

Fun on the rides at the playground.

Carlos and Oscar Escobar practice their head balls in the lake.

Meanwhile the grills are busy, roasting maize and pollo.

Having decided that the best way to have coffee was for us to go to the house and make some, we headed for the house. On the way we encountered these two turkeys on the roadside.

We are back with two pots of coffee, and the food preparation continues. Brenda sits down with Pastor Javier for some authentic Mexican food. Well, maybe El Salvadoran or Nicaraguan, but authentic anyway.

If the food weren't hot enough from the grill, Juan demonstrates how to make it even hotter. Several of them were adding chili pepper to their roasted corn, ..er, "maize". They joked a lot about putting chili pepper on everything, even ice cream, and we saw several of them put it on their watermelon (sandia).

The roasted corn was a big hit - they must have done three or four grills of it, and had a lot of fun joking about how much pepper to put on it.

After lunch, they got into a soccer game on the beach.

After the soccer game, they all got in the lake to cool off, and most of the rest of the group joined them.

About mid afternoon, we all loaded up and went to the other side of the lake where the stream runs from the lake and over the waterfall. This was mostly a new group on this trip, but they had obviously heard about the waterfall.

Most gathered on the end of the deep pool below the waterfall, with some on the platform above the pool.

But the lure of the waterfall on the other end of the pool is irresistable, so Juan has swum to it and climbed up into its spray.

They appeared to be having a great time climbing in and out of the waterfall. Juan makes a dive out of the waterfall.

The lure of jumping off the bank into this deep pool also proved irresistable, and several of them took turns at it.

After a group picture at this end of the lake, we drove back to the pavilion for some songs and a prayer to end this day of fellowship and adventure. We had good weather while it was pouring rain in Atlanta, so we felt blessed to have had the opportunity.