Of the 8 continuous Droullard family summer trips, I have to say this trip was my favorite! The Oregon coast is a nice place, but I LOVE Lake Chelan. The house we rented this year was awesome and had a perfect set up for the week of fun. The living space spilled out to the deck, which flowed right on to the dock and splash into the water. We had lots of water toys and floats to keep us busy all week, including a hot tub! We brought the big island float and paddle board, and they had the slide, kayaks and perfect location on the lake. We were worried on the drive up to Chelan with all the fires near by, but the wind direction kept the worst of it away. It did make for some beautiful sunsets and lighting, but sad to hear how devastating the fires raged and even took out an entire town about 45 minutes away.
The group photograph this year in crazy pose mode was a good one...Thank you Kevin for bringing your nice camera and tripod to help get this fun shot every year.
The paddle board got lots of use.
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| LOVE |
You can only imagine the hours of fun the slide produced!
Kayaks, ball toss, slip and slide and three legged races...we squeezed it all in.
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| Action shot! |
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| THE planned cousin pose captured! |
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| Team JUMP...not as easy as it looks to get us all in the air. |
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| Island float fun. |
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| One, two, three....jump! |
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| Snow cone mission: our one outing to downtown...otherwise we were perfectly happy to SWIM ALL DAY! |
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| Sweet smiles at sunset. |
Lots of good cuddle time with Grandma. Especially Jett who tends to get cold easier than the rest, loved to hang in Grandma's lap, play cards, watch all the excitement around. I am pretty sure that was the perfect way for my mom to spend her time at the lake.
Another attempt at the team JUMP...pretty good, but we left a stubborn one on the dock that time!
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| Who me?! |
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| Ready for fun. |
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| Cute sister picture! |
Mom and her girls! This trip each summer means so much to me. It is the one time each year we all get away from our home distractions and just BE as a family. The crazy kid energy is high and makes for busy days, but the cousins play so well and are fun entertainment for us all. Our only job is to cook, eat and hang out. We excelled at all three!
My dad wasn't feeling 100% for the first few days since he had just had another round of chemo, but he rallied and got to enjoy the deck, the meals and feel the constant motion of the kiddos whirling all around him.
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| Look at that view! |
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| Can't get any cuter! |
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| More fishing...next time we should bring hooks and bait, but for now just casting was good entertainment. |
This was the first year Uncle Paul joined us for the Droullard family trip. What a fun addition to share in this tradition. He made a bet with my mom, that if she got in the lake, then he would bomb down the slide. Well, the temps outside were close to 100 degrees, and that heat helped get her in the water, so Paul kept his word too! Way to be brave Mom and Paul! I think Paul was surprised how much colder the deep water was...he really cooled off after that stunt.
Water fight...kids against Uncle Kevin!
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| Jett warming up |
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| Beauty and her bubble |
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| Yay for Grandma! We LOVE you! |
Old guys, having fun!
Thank you Mom and Dad, once again for keeping this tradition of the summer family trip. This has been an emotionally/physically/mentally challenging year with the news and treatment of Dad's lung cancer. It sucks. The anticipation of this trip gave us all a moment to look forward to and I think it delivered the memories and LOVE I was hoping for. The setting of the house on the lake couldn't have been better. The time to connect and simply enjoy each other's company is what the week is all about. I love you!
