Priest Lake Family Reunion

The kids and I just returned home from our annual, August trip to Priest Lake.  Since we were in the Philippines for three weeks in July, we had to skip our family trip with Ron to the lake last month.  As a result, this was our only time visiting Priest Lake this summer.  We were blessed with unbelievably warm weather in the 90s for the first half of the week and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Although the temperature cooled the second half of the week into the 80s and then the 70s, we still had a gloriously time being with family and enjoying the beautiful outdoors.  Here are some photos of our family time together. 

Ella and Brynn cruising around together on the paddle board.

Lia and Emmett jumping in the water.

The four younger children spent several hours this past week making creations with the clay that they dug up from the beach.  Here are the three boys hard at work.

Riley, Brynn, Chris, Lia, and Callie relaxing on the water mat.

Ella working on her clay creation.

Brynn brought up a paint-by-number canvas for the four girls to work on all week long.  It was so fun to see all of them painting together.

We were blessed with a stunning sunset one of our nights there.

Ella and I paddling together.

As always, the three younger children enjoyed being tossed in the air by Uncle Eric and Uncle Chris.  Here is Ella soaring away from them.

Emmett's turn!

Since Logan has grown so much in the past two years, he no longer gets thrown really high up in the air, but he still loves it!

This summer perfectly captures the essence of summer:  Lia relaxing on the water mat.

A rare group photo we managed to take on the dock.

Logan, Ella, and Emmett at play.

The three younger boys on a paddle board.

Floating around on the inner tube attached to the dock.

The kids enjoyed a few wild, inner tube rides during the week.  Here are Callie, Lia, Trenton, Riley, and Logan cruising together on their tubes.

We enjoyed spending an afternoon at the public beach at the end of the lake.  Here is the traditional cousin picture that I take ever summer.  Sadly, Spencer, Sarah, and Bryce all joined us later in the week after the picture had already been taken.

My kids and me.

The gang before crossing the cold river to get to the other side.

Crossing the river in the water and over a massive fallen tree.

Logan and Trenton battling it out with Riley, who always seems to succeed in kicking the two younger boys off of their tube.

Of my four children, Logan was the only one who agreed to go waterskiing this week as Chris managed to convince him to go two times.

We spent another day at the public beach past Canoe Point.  Someone managed to stand a large log upright in the sand this year which several kids enjoyed getting on top of thanks to the help of Eric.  Here is Ella perched on the top.

Emmett on top!

I helped Emmett make a fairy house on the beach while we were there.

And the four boys enjoyed fighting with sword sticks while Ella looked down from her perch above.

Grandma held her annual scavenger hunt one day after Bryce and Sarah had arrived.  Here are the boys reading one of their clues.

The girls discussing the possible location of one of their clues.

All the cousins lined up together after the scavenger hunt was complete.

The four littles at play on the beach.

We did a family talent & share night and Callie organized one of the funniest things that I have ever seen:  A Grandpa Couture fashion show.  She secretly recruited several cousins to wear one of grandpa's outfits and model them while she narrated the fashion show.  It was so funny, especially since my dad had no idea what was going on half the time.  Here is the group posing with grandpa afterwards.

Since the weather was really too cold to swim in the lake on our last day here, we decided to drive up into the hills to go huckleberry picking.  We enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon picking berries and brought home a huge haul.  Although Ella retreated back to the car after the first half hour, the two boys did a great job and picked a ton of berries!

The berry picking group after we were finished!

The bounty of berries we brought back to the cabin.

Due to his school schedule, Spencer and his family didn't make it to the cabin until the night before we left.  Both Emmett and Ella had a great time playing with little Emileigh  for the few hours that we had with her.  Here is Ella posing with baby Emi on the front porch on Saturday morning before we pulled out to drive home.