camp namanu

we spent labor day weekend at family camp and again had a fabulous weekend!  we went with our dear friends the chown family and the smith family.   riley and kiernan went to overnight camp this summer there and had so much fun showing us everything.   every morning the kids went to age related group activities and the adults got to choose an activity.  the first morning we opted for a creek walk....literally a walk in the creek.  thankfully they had an old bin of shoes for us to borrow.   it was super fun!  

the next morning we grabbed the big kids (riley, kiernan, and sadie) to do a low ropes course with the grown-ups.  harder than it looks!!

...in the afternoon there was time to catch newts 

   ....play ga-ga ball (for hours and hours) 

... a little archery...the kids, the dads, the moms...everyone got into 

....eating meals together in raker hall  

......just hanging out 

     ....all of our tie-dyes drying in the sun 

.....last day in front of our A-frame 

  camp namanu sure do shine all of the time!!

yes day

yes day is something we do towards the end of summer every year....the kids love it almost as much as christmas.  it is a day where the answer to whatever (within reason of course) the kids ask for is 'yes'.  they know when yes day is so they usually make a plan for the day (ground rules include that they have to agree on activities and meals...all for one!).  this was our fourth yes day and, as always it was a fun day full of laughter and lots and lots of 'yes'!!  this year they asked to go to oaks amusement park in portland.  we spent a fun day on the rides.                                                          ....we started our day on the carousel 

...then the ferris wheel

    .....and the roller coaster 

.....and the crowd favorite, the bumper cars! we must've done the bumper cars about 10 times.... 'can we go again?' 'yes!' 

my favorite quote of the day this year was when lucy was finishing a snack and handed her wrapper to todd. 'can you take this?'  'yes.'  she looks at me and says 'i know it's yes day because normally daddy would've said "i'm not your garbage can."                                                                                    it was a fun family day.   and the last request of the day is always...'can we do it again next year?' 'YES!'

beach

early in august we had a great weekend at the beach with my brother's family and my mom and george.   the weather was spectacular!  the kids (and grown-ups) had fun building sand castles. 

  ......there was also some sand angel making.  

and riley wrote his name in the sand as big as he could....he was pretty proud of himself.  

  summertime at the beach is hard to beat!

girls weekend

i was on a role getting the rest of our summer posted and then we decided to keep summer rolling and took a roadtrip to yellowstone!!    it was awesome...but you'll have to wait for those pictures until i finish posting our august adventures.   so going back in time, the first week of august i had a weekend away with my girlfriends.  one of my girlfriends has a place up in the mountains of colorado at winter park.  we all flew into denver and piled in a car and spent the weekend in the mountains.  it was super fun and rather beautiful.  we went on a nice long hike. had some fabulous dinners. drank wine and spent time in the hot tub. went boating on grand lake. and went zip lining to round out the weekend.        

    

such a fun weekend with my some great college friends!!

county fair

summer wouldn't be summer without a day at the county fair.  the hood river county fair is at the end of july for us....usually quite hot but fun nonetheless.


....jack and riley on the 'big' rides

 .....lucy saying hi to the cows

 ....the view of the fair from the top of the ferris wheel

now doesn't that just say summer!!

kauai

the kids are back and school this week and i finally feel like i have a chance to breathe (a little).  we had a summer full of fun, so much so that i haven't had a chance to blog for over a month.  this week i will try to post pictures from our summer.

first up is kauai. we spent a wonderful week there in july with my dad and siblings and niece's to celebrate his 70th birthday.  it was my first time to the island and i gotta say i'm a fan.

the kids woke us up at about 5:30a the first day so excited to get in the surf...so we were body surfing in the sunrise.

we also spent a fair bit of our time eating and drinking... tiki fish tacos were so so good...mmmmm!

one evening we went to a luau with the whole roasted pig thing...

yummy hawaiian dinner...
                                          .......so cute, yet photobombed!

...the girls in matching black strapless dresses

....riley had a bit of a man crush on my niece's boyfriend alec

..

 ....nana and my niece ella

.....lucy and my niece regan

the kids got to practice doing the hula....

then we watched a dance performance....

....it was really quite a fun night.


during the daytime we spent lots of time on the beach!

...we did some hiking with views of the amazingly beautiful napali coast...

....also checked out the waimea canyon which looks like somewhere in arizona, but yet is over the hill from the napali coast...crazy!

....and of course we snorkeled plenty and even swam with the turtles (a highlight for sure!)

...and the last night's dinner with a cake to celebrate dad's 70 years!

it was a fabulous trip full of lots of great memories!!  we all definately want to go back to kauai again someday!!...shocking i know.