Priest Lake Family Reunion

We just returned from our second trip to Priest Lake this summer for my family's summer reunion.  Everyone was able to be there this year except for Ron who needed to stay home and work and for Garrett who is now serving his mission in Atlanta, Georgia (instead of Mexico).  We were blessed with beautiful weather in the 80s most of the week and the kids had a glorious time running around with their cousins and playing in the water.  I will admit that this week nearly killed me. After Emmett slept horribly in his pack 'n play during our vacation last month, I figured that he would do the same thing this month which turned out to be the case.  The big difference this time around is that I did not have Ron to help me during the night or the day times and there would be 22 other people in the cabin instead of the small group that was with us last month.  This meant that Emmett and I had to share our bedroom with the three other kids which resulted in them being woken up multiple times at night and early every morning.  In addition, the large group of people made for chaotic meal times and loud nap times and all sorts of other issues that I had to deal with on a daily basis.  Sticking it out for eight days while trying to be my children's caretaker and source of entertainment took almost every ounce of energy out of me.  I was so exhausted by the end of our week there that I was seriously worried about falling asleep at the wheel during our seven hour drive home.  As a result, my dad made the last minute decision to leave early and drive home with us yesterday which I was so grateful for.  Although my kids had a wonderful time and there were moments of brilliance for me, I definitely made a sacrifice for my children to be up at the cabin with their cousins this week.  I just hope that Emmett will start to outgrow this phase of sleeping poorly when we are not at home as I just don't think I have it in me to keep on travelling if this is what he is going to put me through every single time we leave home overnight.

One of the moments of brilliance I experienced every morning this week was being able to go on a morning water ski with some of my family members.  I was blessed to have beautiful water every morning which almost made the week worth it.  In addition, I was able to convince Lia to go skiing four of the mornings.  I had her practice turning inside the wake and she even ventured out of it the last morning, but sadly it ended it a crash rather quickly.  Oh well. There's always next summer!

Emmett got lots of attention from his cousins which definitely was a help to me.  Here he is relaxing with his big cousins Riley and Trenton.

Emmett with Riley, Trenton, and Bryce.

After talking about it for a few months, our family finally bit the bullet and bought our own water mat.  The kids were all so excited when it arrived via a FedEx truck!  Here are Lia, Ella, and Callie playing on it one of the mornings down at the lake.

Ella did a wonderful job playing with Emmett on the beach several times this week.  Here are the two of them shoveling sand together.

One morning, a few of us piled in the boat and drove over to the public beach past Canoe Point.  Logan and Trenton both enjoyed swimming around with their new snorkel sets.  Here is a cute picture I got of them.

Logan snorkeling around in the shallow, clear water off of the beach.

Ella and Emmett playing inside the little shack that someone else had built and left behind on the beach.

Emmett pointing out to the water.

The large group photo that our neighbor took of our entire family.

All of the grandchildren minus Garrett, but plus Spencer's new wife, Hannah.

The grandparents with their grandchildren.

We enjoyed playing some group games throughout the week.  Here is the table of the older kids trying to pick up as many marshmallows with chopsticks in 60 seconds.

The table with the little kids playing the same game.

Lia picking up her marshmallows.

Rebecca also had the kids play a second game to see how many M & Ms they could pick up by sucking through straw.

This is the one picture I managed to get of a scene that occurred many times throughout the week.  Several of Emmett's bigger cousins would pick him up and place him on stop of the railing post at the bottom of the stairs.  Emmett loved this and would always start clapping.  Everyone in the living room or kitchen that could see him would then start clapping, too.  It was the funniest thing to see him do this over and over again.

After leaving a sometimes fussy Emmett behind to be watched by my dad the first two mornings that I went water skiing, my mom suggested that I bring him in the boat with us. This ended up being a great idea as he was happy as a clam to ride in someone's lap while being in the boat.  As a result, I ended up bring him with me skiing every morning the rest of the week.  Here is the darling picture my sister-in-law took of him one morning.  Look at the mist rising off the water! 

My niece, Sarah, holding Emmett while I water skied.

A shot my sister-in-law took of me finishing off my ski.  Ahhh!

Natalee and I took a large group of kids to the beach on the far side of Canoe Point one afternoon.  Here is a family photo I had Kelsey take of us as a wave came crashing in.  Look at that clear water!

The kiddos that came with us on our adventure.

After swimming over the freezing cold river (that consists of mountain runoff water) and walking out to the sandbar where we wrote all of the kids' names in rocks, we headed back to the beach where I had left the boat pulled up onto the sand.  Here are the kids and me before climbing back into the boat.

Since there were so many kids that wanted to come with us, we hooked up an inner tube and pulled three kids going there and coming back.  Lia and Ella decided to ride with Riley on the boat ride back to the beach.

Another fun activity I enjoyed this week was kayaking with Emmett in the little, red kayak that Eric rescued last year from Lake Sammamish.  He brought it up for everyone to enjoy at Priest Lake and I fell in love with it.  This kayak is so little and lightweight that it just zips all over the place and Emmett loved sitting in my lap every time I took it out for a morning paddle.

Emmett and I zipping along.

Enjoying the beautiful, calm, morning water.

Logan and Riley exploring on the paddle board together.

Lia, Logan, and Riley cruising around.

Lia has become a very proficient paddle boarder these past few summers.  Here she is striking a pose for me.

Two cousins pausing for a picture while paddling along.

Ella going on a boat ride with her older cousins, Kelsey and Brynn.

Logan and Trenton playing on the water mat.

Spencer taking a group out in the boat while pulling a skier.

Lia smiling at me as she heads out to sea!

Par tradition, grandma put on a scavenger hunt for all the grandchildren complete with challenging clues placed all over the property.  My children always look so forward to participating in this hunt each year.  Here are all of the girls posing on the dock after finishing up.

All of the boys posing with their loot after finishing up a few minutes after the girls!