Labor Day Weekend on Blake Island

For the 15th year in a row, I headed out to Blake Island with the four kids to spend Labor Day weekend camping with some of my family.  I know that I say this every year, but this is one of my all-time, favorite traditions and my favorite way to wrap up our busy summer break.  This year, Chris came with Riley and Trenton, and Eric and Rebecca brought Vivian and four of her counselor friends who she has worked with this summer at her Y summer camp.  In addition, my parents came out to spend the morning and afternoon with us on Saturday.  The weather was warm and sunny all Saturday and Sunday, but was cool and a little rainy on Monday morning.  Like always, we spent a wonderful weekend out there enjoying all of our favorite activities.  We loved spending these final days of summer with family and are always so grateful to Chris for making this annual trip possible.

August 31st:

After driving to Port Orchard after Ella's morning gymnastics practice on Saturday, we finally made it out to the island around 3 p.m. after waiting an hour or so for Chris to launch the boat and make a first trip out there with Eric and Rebecca.  By the time we finished setting up camp, it was time for dinner.  Here are Riley and Trenton enjoying dinner with us in our campsite.

After dinner, I asked Vivi to take some family photos of us on the beach as the sun was setting.

I rounded up all of the cousins who were there (7 out of the 14) for a cousin photo on the beach with Mount Rainier in the background.

We then enjoyed playing 500 and some baseball in the field for the rest of the evening and headed back to our tents for bedtime once it got dark.

September 1st:

We woke up to a low tide the next day and enjoyed spending a few hours playing on the beach after breakfast.

A mommy and kids picture that I had Riley take of us.

Riley started a project that all of the boys really got into and entertained them for a few hours.  He blocked off one of the little streams heading out to the ocean and created a pool that they enlarged and maintained for many hours.  They even put some wild life in the pool (including a large crab that Eric found in the water).  It was so fun watching Logan and Emmett get so involved in this.

The boys working on the pool while the girls chatted in the background.

A picture of all of the grandkids with grandma and grandpa.

After lunch, we headed to the other side of the island to spend the afternoon.  Eric and Chris got a big game of ultimate frisbee going with all of the kids, including Emmett.  It was so fun to watch them playing with the Seattle skyline in the background.

We came back to the camp for a few hours before heading off to Bainbridge Island to pick up dinner.  I played hide-and-go-seek in the tall grass and logs for over an hour to keep some of the kids occupied until it was time to leave.  Here is a picture of all four siblings sitting on the massive, fallen tree near our campsite.

We enjoyed a beautiful, sunset cruise to Bainbridge Island and back to pick up pizzas for dinner.  After returning back to Blake Island, we ate our pizza dinner and waited for the sun to set so that we could begin playing "Capture the Flag" which is one of the highlights of the weekend.  All four of Vivian's friends really got into this game and so we played several intense rounds in the dark.  Sadly, Emmett got hurt at the beginning of the game and cried by my side for the next 30 minutes until I finally got him happy.  Within a minute or two of Emmet cheering up, Eric and Ella colliding while running at a full sprint, which sent Ella flying to the ground.  As a result, Ella and I had to quit the game early since she was in so much pain from hitting the ground so hard.  Regardless, we all climbed into our sleeping bags that night pretty tired from a long day of playing in the sun.  And although we woke up to rain on Monday morning, we still enjoyed our last few hours on the island before packing up and heading back to Port Orchard around lunch time.  As always, it was the perfect way to finish off our summer vacation!