Unfortunately, if we're not careful when we plan, transport and serve that picnic, our outing might not end up happily.

Here are some tips to remember when planning an outdoor meal:

1. Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold. Bacteria multiply quickly at temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees. Foods that have been kept at unsafe temperatures are a prime source of foodborne illnesses.

2. Plan ahead and try to take foods that don't spoil so quickly. At any rate, don't eat anything that's been sitting out for more than an hour, especially if temperature is over 80.

3. Try to take only amount of food that will be eaten, so there will be no leftovers.

4. Pack your food with ice or cold packs in an insulated cooler. Place foods that will be eaten last in bottom. You can make your own blocks of ice by freezing water in milk cartons or other plastic containers.

Place ice blocks or cold packs between containers of food, never just place containers of food on top of ice.

It wasn’t a staged one. It wasn’t one I had on my infamous “list” to have taken. I didn’t know it had been taken. I didn’t even see this one until nearly a month after we’d been married. Yet is it my favorite of all of them. Why? Because in one single image our relationship was captured—frozen forever on Fuji Photo Film.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I’ll try not to use quite that many to explain it. In picture I’m doing what I’m always doing—directing traffic. Since it was taken during photo session following our wedding and since we didn’t see each other before wedding and since my husband’s immediate family had 26 people in it at time, there was a lot of traffic to direct. There were certain pictures that I wanted, and we had a small window of opportunity to get them taken.

In short, I was occupied.