Our July Trip to Priest Lake

We just returned yesterday from our annual family trip to Priest Lake in July.  Since our part of the country has been experiencing record high temperatures ever since the middle of June, we were blessed with unbelievable weather in the high 90s almost every single day while we were there.  In addition, the water temperature was the hottest we have ever seen!  Although it was a whoppin' 80 degrees when my parents arrived on July 1st (which is just unheard of), it remained 78 degrees the entire week we were there which was still amazing.  In addition, there was a wonderful, warm breeze that blew every afternoon which is something that I can only remember feeling a few other times.  Since it was just my parents in addition to our own family, we were blessed with the most peaceful, relaxing, and wonderful week which was such a blessing for me.  I was able to take a nap every single day while Emmett napped which helped recharge me for our marathon trip to North Carolina that we are leaving for in just a few days.  

The only thing that went wrong all week long was the propeller falling off  of our boat within minutes of us launching it for the first time this summer on the morning after we arrived.  Although I drove the boat back alone from the boat launch, the propeller luckily did not fall off until I slowed the boat down several hundred feet away from the dock.  I was then able to hop out and physically pull the boat down the shoreline (using a rope) until I got it safely back to our dock.  As a result of this mishap, we were without a working boat the entire week we were there with the exception of the very last day since we had to wait for a new propeller to be shipped from Spokane to my parent's boat mechanic who lives on the other side of the lake.  Luckily, my parent's good friend and nextdoor neighbor allowed us to use his boat for my morning ski runs all week long--so I only missed out on skiing the first morning when we launched our boat.  I was so grateful for their generosity and kindness!   

Overall, it was a great vacation full of fun in the sun and in the water.  I am always so grateful to my parents for making this wonderful vacation spot possible for us to use and enjoy with my family every summer!  I know that I have said it before, but I will say it again...I heart Priest Lake.  It is one of my all-time, favorite places in all the world!

Although I didn't take any pictures during our first day there, this is the cute selfie that Ron took of the three of us enjoying relaxing on the dock on the afternoon of July 6th.

Since our neighbor loaned us his boat, I was able to get Ella up on water skis (for the second summer in a row) on the morning of July 7th after I had done my morning ski.  In addition, Ron tried skiing for the first time in ten or so years and got up on his second try.  Although Lia has mastered getting up on two-skis and staying up inside the wake for the past several summers, she was unable to get up this morning which was a disappointment to both of us.  Logan also tried three times, but wasn't able to get up either.  Although he got up once two summers ago, he absolutely refused to try last year.  So, I was grateful that he was willing to give it a try this summer.  Here is the picture my mom was able to take of Ella of one of the three times that she got up this morning.  I was so proud of her!

Ella was so brave every time she crashed and patiently waited for either Ron or me to swim out to meet her.  Normally, she is afraid of swimming out into the "dark" water in the lake, but she did a great job being brave and didn't panic while she waited to try to get up again.  She even managed to smile for me as I took this picture of her from the boat.

After our water skiing session that last most of the morning, we enjoyed playing in the water.  Here are Lia and Ella cruising around on the paddle board.

Although Emmett warmed up to the water by the afternoon of our second day there, he was quite skittish at first and only would go into the shallow water near the beach.

Brothers hanging out on the dock together.

Like last year, Logan loved paddling around in the little, red kayak.

Mommy and son paddling around together.

By the afternoon of July 7th, Ron convinced Emmett to jump into his arms from a sitting position on the dock.  This started a game that Emmett fell in love with and wanted to play every single time he saw one of us get into the water the rest of the week.

Emmett jumping to daddy.

My cute, 2-year old boy!

Lia balancing on the shoulders of Ron.  This is a trick the two of them have been doing for years.

This is the hilarious picture I took of Emmett hanging out in the TV room with Logan and grandpa.  Emmett had apparently run upstairs and gotten two of his ya yas--one to share with grandpa and one to use himself.  They both put their pacifiers in their mouths backwards and were laughing at each other when I walked into the room.  I told my dad that this was a huge token of Emmett's love to share one of his beloved pacifiers with him.

On Thursday, July 8th, Ron took the three older children on a marathon adventure to Silverwood Theme Park two hours away in Athol, Idaho.  They were gone from 8 a.m. to 12:15 a.m.  Yes, that's right.  They were gone for over 16 hours.  The kids and Ron had a great time playing in the waterpark all morning and then spending the rest of the day and evening in the amusement park.  I stayed behind at the cabin with Emmett and my parents and thoroughly enjoyed a more quiet and peaceful day.  In addition, Emmett and I had so much fun playing together for a few hours in the morning and in the afternoon down at the beach and in the water together.  It was so nice to just be able to focus my undivided attention on him for one day!

Ella cruising around on one of the rides.

The kids enjoying an afternoon snack of Dippin' Dots to help them cool off!

Ella at the helm taking Ron for a spin on another ride.

The kids standing next to a welcome sign on their way out after a very long day.  As a side note, Ron and the kids left after a very long day at 9:30 p.m. and should have gotten home by 11:30.  However, they got delayed by 30 minutes due to traffic being stopped on Highway 2 after a truck rolled off the road.  The fact that they were stuck in traffic this late at night on this country road is just crazy and so not normal!  

Emmett playing around with THREE ya yas in his mouth while his siblings were away!  Normally, at home, all of his pacifiers are in a jar way up high in his room that he cannot get to on his own!  Since he was able to sneak upstairs and crawl into his pack 'n play to get to his pacifiers whenever he felt like it this week, he was constantly coming downstairs with one, two ,or three in his mouth.  Oh, that boy...

Emmett enjoyed some one-on-one time playing with grandma while I made dinner on Thursday evening.

Since the group was exhausted from a long day and late night, no one else wanted to go water skiing with me on Friday morning.  Here are Ella, Ron, and Emmett hanging out on the dock after I had returned from my morning ski.

I managed to ask my mom to take our only family picture all week long.

The Hartland fam surrounded by Priest Lake.

After being afraid at first, I was able to force Emmett to sit in my lap in the kayak with my mom's help.  Within a minute or so, he realized how much he loved it (like he did last summer) and let me take him on several kayak rides the rest of the week.  Here we are cruising around on the morning of July 9th.

Mommy and Emmy loving life in the kayak.

Lia and Logan joined us for a morning cruise on their paddle boards.

Ella discovered that she could do a cartwheel into the water and did this many times throughout the week.  Here is the awesome picture that I managed to get of her.

My little gymnast emerging from the water.

Logan doing one of his self-taught flips into the water.

Lia and Logan jumping into the water together.

Emmy watching all of the action from the edge of the dock.

Emmett jumping into my arms.

Emmy and mama in the water together.

Oh, how I love this boy!

Cruising around with Logan again.

Lia and I relaxing on the water mat.

Ella and Logan opened up their beachside cafe again this year and made several amazing "meals" for us.  Here is Ella showing off one of her culinary creations.

Playing with Emmett and Ella on the beach.

Ella and I smiling for the camera while Emmett poured water into the spinning toy.

The cutest, little boy ever.

Ella showing off her dolphin-shaped sand creation she made on the dock.

Since July 9th was Ron's and my 16th anniversary (gasp!), my mom suggested that we treat ourselves to dinner at the Cavanaugh Bay Resort and leave the children behind with them.  We spent a beautiful evening eating on the deck overlooking the marina.  This is the second time that we have spent our anniversary at this resort and it sure is the perfect place to celebrate!

On our last morning, July 10th, our family was finally able to use our boat after it had been fixed the afternoon before.  I was able to go out on one last, glorious ski of the week.

There are just a few things in life that make me as happy as water skiing on glassy water on Priest Lake.  I just love it.

Ron going for his second run of the week.

Ron skiing on perfect water with the beautiful mountains in the background.

Although Logan refused to try again and Lia was unable to get up, Ella agreed to give it a go and got up on her second try this morning.  Here is my cute thing getting up from the water.

And off she goes leaving me in the spray behind her.

Sweet Emmy walking down the gangplank of the dock.

Since we finally had our own boat back, we felt comfortable to take it out on a little excursion Saturday morning.  We decided to go visit our favorite group beach in Canoe Point since the beach is so stunning there!

We were the first boat there, but by the time we left two hours later, the beach was packed with about ten more boats who had showed up after us.  I am grateful for the time we had alone on this beautiful beach!

Emmett loved "swimming" in the shallow water with daddy.

My cute boy smiling at me!

Ron enjoyed throwing the football around with the boys.

Brothers at play.

Logan getting ready to throw the ball to his dad.

Siblings who swim together, stay together.

Ron had fun throwing Logan up into the air several times while we were at this beach.  Here is the hilarious picture I managed to take of Logan flying through the air.

Emmy and mama cuddling in the water.

Ella spent most of her time at the beach building a very elaborate and detailed, fairy house.  Here she is showing off the finished product.

Of course, Logan had to get in on the fun and made his own creation down the beach from Ella's.  Here he is posing with his house, complete with a slide and detached shed.  Oh, how I love these creative kids of mine!

Celebrating the 4th at Home!

Ever since Ron and I moved back to Washington, we have always celebrated the 4th of July at Lake Sammamish with the exception of the few times that we have been on vacation (Caribbean cruise, Disneyland, Japan, and Florida).  Since I grew up always being at the lake on the 4th, I decided years ago that I wanted my children to have the same wonderful experience as long as it is possible before my family sells the property.  As a result, I intentionally scheduled our departure to Priest Lake for July 5th this year so that we could enjoy this annual tradition before we left.  However, a few weeks ago, I learned that my parents and my brother, Chris, and his family, were both going to be out of town.  Since my two cousins who live in the area are no longer regulars at the lake for this holiday, it was probably going to end up being just my brother, Eric, and his small family in addition to ours.  Since being on the lake is so much fun on the 4th (since you can watch the fireworks going off all over the place), I will still planning on going even though our group was going to be significantly smaller this year.  However, after talking it over with Eric a few days ago, and weighing the pros and cons, we decided together that we would take a year off and celebrate at home.  Since this meant that I would have one more day to pack for our trip to Priest Lake, I was easily persuaded as I will still totally exhausted and worn out from camping with the bad head cold that I had come down with the week before.  

So, we changed our plans last minute and decided to attend a picnic up the hill at one of our neighbor's houses and then set off fireworks in front of our house with our good friends who live next door.  Although we didn't end up knowing many of the  people at the picnic dinner (since it turned out to be more close friends and family of of the hosts than a neighborhood get together), we had the best time coming back to our house and lighting off fireworks in front of our driveway with Poppy and Daisy and their mom and dad.  We were outside for a good 1.5 hours blowing off our fireworks while our neighborhood went CRAZY all around us!  It seriously sounded like we were in the middle of a warzone or something.  Since Emmett has zero recollection of the 4th of July from last year since he was only one year old, it was so much fun watching him react to all of the fireworks.  After getting over his initial fear of them, he happily sat in Ron's or my lap and just cheered the group on as we continued to set off all of our fireworks!  And, one of the highlights of the evening came at the end when we only had to make a ten second walk back to our house instead of driving almost an hour ride home from the lake when we finally finished at 10:30!   

The Hartland fam all lined up in our chairs at the end of our driveway.

Siblings ready to go!

Lia, Ella, Logan, Daisy, and Poppy holding up their sparklers.

Logan and Daisy dueling it out with their sparklers while the rest of the girls twirled theirs around in the air.

Daddy helping Ella light a firework.

Emmy cuddling with big sister.

We all laughed as our neighbor, Kyle, came out of his garage with his blow torch to use as a lighter.  Here he is helping Logan set off one of his fireworks.

Logan lighting some ground boom flowers.

One of the many fountains we shot off that night.

Another pretty fountain going off as the evening got dark.

Camping at Coho

Well, we just successfully completed our first trip of the summer.  We did have six trips scheduled until last week when Ron learned that his mandatory, Admin retreat in August is scheduled for the same time that our camping trip on Hood Canal was planned.  As a result, we had to cancel it which makes this camping trip the first of five trips instead of six this summer which is actually fine with me as I was already feeling overwhelmed about all of the work that this was going to be for me. 

As I mentioned in the previous posts, I scheduled this trip to stay in the Coho Campground back in March when I obviously had no idea of the incoming heat wave.  It turned out to be such a blessing for us as staying in our house on Monday night would have been simply unbearable.  Since Ron and I felt so awful Sunday evening due to how hot our house was (and also being so sick for me), we just didn't have the energy to start packing for our camping trip.  As a result, we had to crank it into high gear on Monday morning and pack everything for our trip in a matter of hours.  Since I was feeling so poorly, it took all of the energy that I could muster to work in my 90 degree kitchen packing up all of the food while Ron worked outside loading up the car and camper.  After a quick lunch, we pulled out by 1 p.m. which was our hope as it allowed us to be in an air conditioned car for the next three hours during the heat of the day.  Although we drove through a town that hit 112 degrees (wow!), it was "only" 104 degrees when we pulled up to our campground.  Needless to say, it was so hard to drag our bodies out of our comfortable car and into the scorching heat when we arrived at our campsite.  

After quickly unhitching our camper and pulling a few things out of our car, we got dressed in our swimsuits and headed to Lake Wynoochee to spend the rest of the afternoon in the water.  We were then able to come back and cook dinner and set up camp in the evening heat before the temperature amazingly started to drop (like the weather forecast had said it would).  By the time it was 9 p.m., it was totally comfortable on Monday night!  It was such a miracle and such a blessing!  We then spent a mellow two days at our campsite and back at the lake before packing up and heading home at lunch time on Wednesday.  Since both Lia and I felt pretty under the weather from our bad colds the entire time, this turned out to be a more mellow camping trip than I am used to.  But I am just grateful that we were able to come as both Lia and I were pretty tempted to cancel last minute on Monday morning.  I am just so grateful that we were able to escape the worst day of the heat wave to go and spend some quality family time in the beautiful Olympic National Forest for a few days.

The unbelievable 112 degree temperature that Ron and I saw on his car's dash screen on the drive out to Lake Wynoochee.

Logan and Lia cooling off in Lake Wynoochee in 104 degree weather soon after arriving.

Emmy and daddy standing in the water.

Due to how bright and hot the sun was, Ella stole Ron's huge straw hat soon after getting out of the water.  I just thought she looked so cute in it--especially while wearing her watermelon swimsuit.

Ella modeling daddy's hat.

Ron, Emmett, Logan, and Lia swimming in the water with the mountains off in the distance.

Ella, Logan, Emmett, and me in the water.

As the sun began to set and the campground started cooling off, Emmett decided he wanted to try out his bed before we actually put him to down for the night.  Here is our cutie with his ya-ya and comfy cozy all snuggled up and ready to go to sleep.

Since one of our two large air mattresses has a hole in it (that I have never been able to find and fix), I made poor Lia sleep on it instead of me.  She looked so funny when she woke up Tuesday morning all sunk down low into the middle of it.  This is the funny picture I took of her.

Although Emmett slept with Lia and me in the tent, he loved going to hang out in the rooftop tent with Logan whenever he had the chance.  Here are the two boys playing in the tent together before breakfast.

After getting dressed, Ella headed straight for the hammock which is one of her favorite things to do whenever she camps with daddy.

Within a matter of minutes, Logan and Emmett joined Ella in the hammock and it quickly became a wild and chaotic tangled mess of legs and laughter.

The kids with all of their tangled legs laughing away.

Emmett soon wanted out leaving behind a cute pair of siblings.  Ella and Logan have loved playing and fighting in this hammock ever since their dad bought it years ago.

We enjoyed a delicious breakfast in our campsite on Tuesday morning.

We then headed out on a morning outing to see where "Man Camp" had taken place for Ron and Logan right on the banks of the Wynoochee River.  The setting was beautiful.  We enjoyed walking across this old foot bridge to get a better view of the river below.

The gang crossing the bridge.

Ella posing for mama.

Ron and the kids.

The beautiful river.

After we returned back to camp, we all ate lunch and then I put Emmett down for his afternoon nap while Lia read a book and Logan and Ella hung out with Ron.  Unfortunately, Emmett was never able to settle down in his bed and fall asleep (a first for any of our two-years old children while camping) and so we gave up by 3 p.m.

Ron then set up the horse shoes (or "ring horse" as Ella calls it) in our campsite for the three younger kids to play for awhile.  Here is Logan tossing a horse shoe.

Emmett trying to make a ringer.

Ella taking a turn.

We then drove back down to the lake to spend the rest of the afternoon before dinner.  Logan and Ella enjoyed building their own "campfires" in the sand with rocks and sticks.

A close-up of Ella's "cooking station" and campfire.

Emmett was much more brave the second afternoon and spent the majority of the time in the water instead of in Ron's arms.

Ellie and me.

After swimming at the lake, we came back to our campsite where we enjoyed eating dinner and hanging out around the campfire in totally normal and pleasant weather.  We all kept on commenting about how good it felt to be feeling the 70 and 80 degree weather all day long.  All on his own, Emmett put together these two camp chairs for him to relax in.  We just thought it was the funniest thing!

Ella requested to move into the tent with Lia, Emmett, and me on Tuesday night.  Due to the hole in the air mattress (that we had blown up again last night), the two girls woke up almost on top of each other the next morning.  I thought that it was so funny that I snapped a picture of the sleeping sisters before they woke up.

We enjoyed one last meal around our picnic table on Wednesday morning before starting the massive packing up process.  I just loved how everyone looked surrounded by all of our hanging swimsuits, clothing, and towels that we had hung up on our pop up canopy.

Emmett enjoyed eating all of his meals from his little chair on top of the picnic table.  He looked so cute perched up there.  Here he is enjoying his eggs and sausage on Wednesday morning.

While we were packing up on Wednesday morning, I snapped a few pictures of the children in our campsite to show how beautiful the location was with all of the tall, evergreen trees surrounding us.  The Olympic National Forest really is a beautiful place to visit.

Logie and Emmy.

Ellie and Emmy.

Logan perched a top the massive stump in our campsite.

And Ella doing the same!