Chelan 2012

I love this trip. I.love.this.trip. I am a sentimental gal, and bringing my own kids to the place I grew up (well, for a week every summer) makes me so happy. This year was probably the most fun yet, with the ages the girls are at. Austen sobbed for a good portion of the ride home: "I wanna go back to Lake Chelaaannnnnnn!" It was so heartbreaking that I actually turned to Jeff and one point and told him to turn around. We didn't. It was temping, though.

And here is a big ole' photo dump because there are a lot, and if I let myself type too much I'll just ramble about the same 'ole stuff.

Pondering life on the drive over



We stopped in Wenatchee on the drive over to drop Riley off with Grandma and Grandpa -- they were camping, so the girls got some park time

 I ran the ChelanMan half marathon the first morning we were there. I ran my best time of 1:58:08, averaging 9:01 minute miles. I'm so glad I did it, even though it was warm and a slight incline for much of the second half. It was right along the lake:

This is a fake "I'm loving this" picture. This was mile 11, where it usually starts to get a little hairy.

My brother, bless his heart, came and found me on his bike and took pictures (and cheered me on just when I needed it).

I am posting this picture because Rob (my bro) is in it, and I realized that I didn't take any pictures of us together. He came to town just for this trip, then headed back to Cali. Here I am telling a typical animated-Lisa story, about what I have no idea.

Starting the day with some colors

This cutie in the front is Emily. She is Cameron's daughter. The Guernsey's joined us this year after a long hiatus. I grew up coming to Chelan with Cameron and his brother, Brian (and others), so it was pretty cool to have our kids playing together on this trip.

Does this need a caption?

Little diva

Haulin' water like it's her job

One of my faves of K

We take over the lawn

Good 'ole Darnells from the lake

I'm guessing that Gary did this with me when I was about this age, too

This was the best we got, folks

The whole fam



"Our silly faces"

Papa needed help squeezing into the playhouse :)

Success! Now, Mama, leave us alone

We met up with our friends, Erin and Justin, up at Wapato Point. K and A love their kids, Campbell and Owen, who are right around their age

This lasted about 3 "holes"

I wish I caught this better -- pretty cute :)

Daddy and Austen Girl

There's a little bit of mischief up on the balcony...

Loungin'

The Kaitlyn Show:

And Austen:

Daily shade time while little sis slept

Still rubbin' that lip

I love the smell of a real bbq

Juice is a treat at our house

And this is a good reason. Kaitlyn has about a minute long "frap" (ever heard of those for puppies? Look it up) like clockwork after she has sugar. She's like her mama :)

Al has been coming to Darnell's for some crazy amount of years, and we enjoy seeing him (and his lovely wife, Sarita {sp?}) every July

Tigers in the grass

"Roaaarrr!"

Jungle Gym Jeff

Playing babies as we were loading cars

My bro

I love this of Austen and Grandma Bonnie (from the Riley drop-off)

And a phone dump:

Noodle wars

Looking into the sun ;)

Redhead diva

Kaitlyn got a nasty splinter from the dock -- it was no fun at all to dig out :(

We headed to Slide Waters, not knowing what to expect from the girls. We were fully prepared to hang out in the kiddie pool for a few hours. However, they absolutely LOVED the slides; big and small. I took Kaitlyn right up to the big ones and her "Weeeeeee!!!!!" could be heard across the park, I'm sure. This kid-at-heart mama couldn't have been happier. :)

Austen is actually our bigger wild card at the moment, so when she had the same reaction, Jeff and I high fived and declared the whole trip a huge success. Our family of four got another cheek workout.

We got phone pictures of the kiddie pool slide and the child slides (which they both went down on their own and loved -- more surprise!) No pictures of the big slides.

The girls wanted to help Daddy with his sunscreen, and he got a back massage. Win-win.

Kid pong!

The small, black blur on top of that building is a huge owl. He's been perching there to hunt bats for the past three years. We got to watch him catch a few and enjoy his meals on his perch.

Jeff is so proud of Kaitlyn's stars after they worked on them together. :) I can say this because I think it's something she's been born with (aka we don't take credit for it), but this kid has the fine motor skills of a budding artist -- she's amazing!

I seriously debated including this picture because I know of a few different groups of people who read this, and I don't know if it's smart to admit that I read the Fifty Shades of Grey series. I know that I'll want to remember this little story, so I'm taking a chance with including it. We put Kaitlyn to bed and brought the video monitor down to the grass with us. At one point, we saw her grabbing a book from what we thought was her toy bin. When we came in to go to bed, this is what we found. Don't worry, this book does not include illustrations. ;)

And because I don't wish to end on that note, more phone pics: