Family Picnic in Roethke Park

Martine's high school reunion ended today with a family picnic in Roethke Park, Saginaw, Michigan. It was so much fun meeting some of Martine's classmates! For our girls it was a bit difficult because we really wanted to be involved in the conversations and they couldn't really understand what we were talking about as they speak Dutch and we were of course speaking in English.

We took them on a train ride and I walked around the very small lake (or should that be called a pond?) together with Nienke and Inge. When they put their feet in the water lots of small fish actually tried nibbling them. That felt really funny (apparently; didn't try it myself) and after that it was decided the fish could eat some of our bread instead. There were a couple of benches around the lake and this shot was taken at one of them. All in all the children did enjoy themselves even though they rather had gone swimming at the pool which is also in the park.

It turned out to be really difficult to take pictures with sun, shade and the water reflecting the sunlight. I didn't bring my polarizing filter (well actually I did, but I didn't take it with me on our walk around the lake) and maybe that would have helped but some suggestions as to how to get the lighting correct in these circumstances would be appreciated!

Best viewed bigger IMHO...

Edit: I know this shot is OK; I took care of avoiding shade and water reflections here. But there are almost 100 other shots that could have been a lot better if I would only know how to...