Family Trip to Priest Lake

We just returned tonight from a glorious week in Priest Lake with my parents for our annual, July trip.  It seriously was one of the best vacations I have had up there.  For starters, the weather was amazing...in the high 80s or 90s all week long.  So, every day we were able to spend quality time playing on the beach or swimming in the water with the kiddos.  In addition, there was glassy water every morning except for one.  Now that Lia is my designated "flagger," she joined my mom and me every time that I went skiing.  Skiing on smooth water in the calm of the morning with barely a boat on the lake is just one of my favorite things and it is so fun to now share this with my little girl.  Lia did a great job swimming every day without a life jacket and really got confident swimming in the deep end while we were up there.  Logan had a great time playing on the beach and splashing around in the shallow water.  And Ella just had a good time being in the thick of it all.  We ate good food every day, took plenty of naps, enjoyed spending quality time with our kids and my parents, and overall just basked in the slow pace one finds up there.  I heart Priest Lake.
Here are some random pictures of our week up north of the narrows...

Lia leaping off of the dock with no life jacket on!

Lia swimming back toward the dock.

Mother and daughter playing on the dock.

Lia running towards the beach.

After some coaxing, I was able to convince Logan to go out on the kayak with me.  He actually had a good time as long as we didn't go out too far.

Lia was much braver and happily paddled out with me past the dock to find papa swimming.

Mommy and daughter.

Logan and Lia got in on the fun together.  It always makes me so happy when I see them playing nicely together (because it doesn't happen all of the time).

One morning during baby Ella's nap, Ron and I took the kids over to the tennis court for some fun.  Here is Ron teaching Lia how to hit a ball.

Logan ran around with me throwing various balls and being crazy.  Here he is posing with a tennis racket in front of his face.

Lia looking cool with her racket.

We stopped and investigated the scooper parked next to the tennis court.  As you can imagine, Logan loved driving it.

Ron, Logan, and Lia posing with the scooper.

We managed to get Ella down to the beach most of the days that we were there.  The funny thing was that she did NOT like walking on the sand.  As a result, she either stayed on the towel or sat in one of our laps the entire time we were down there while usually playing with a bucket and a shovel.  Here is my baby girl hesitantly looking at me after I put her down to take a picture.

When I moved Ella over to the wet sand to get a picture out of the shade, this is what she did!  I told you she doesn't like standing on the sand! 

Papa and his girls.

One of the few pictures I have managed to snap with my three kiddos alone.  It's amazing I got this one as Ella began crying and Logan began picking his nose by the time I snapped the second picture.

Ella hanging out in the boat.

Papa and Logan relaxing in the boat with Ella.

A few days into our vacation, Ella discovered this little, play backpack.  She asked Ron to put it on and fell in LOVE with it!  She wore it all of her waking hours in the cabin from that point on.  It was just the cutest thing!  Ron and I kept on commenting how Ella kind of grew up over night once she started wearing this backpack.  She suddenly became this sassier, more independent, and more confident child while wearing this backpack.  Very funny.

Ella and her backpack on the go.

One morning, we left a sleeping Ella at the cabin with my parents and cruised the channel to Upper Priest Lake.  This is another one of my favorite things to do up here.  

Ron and the kids basking in the sun while cruising the channel.

Ron and my dad managed to squeeze in their annual swim across the lake one morning after I water skied.  I stayed up in the cabin with the kids while my mom drove the boat next to them.  We were able to watch them the entire time due to view from the cabin deck.  You can barely make out two little heads swimming to the right of the boat in this picture.

We actually attempted a few family pictures on our last afternoon there.  Amazingly, they didn't turn out that bad.  Here we are with Lia striking an Elsa pose (that I didn't know about at the time). :-)

Another angle on the deck.

And one down on the beach.  I'm just amazed that Logan was looking at the camera every single time!