Packing Up

Yesterday was a day of packing and driving. The kids were a great help getting things put away. Then they sat patiently waiting for the adults to finish so we could hit the road home.

Marcus and Marc played a little football before we left.

Nice throw Marcus!

A quick group photo before we left. Then back home we all went. It was the perfect Labor Day Weekend once again. Hope everyone else had a great one too!

Labor Day - Day 2

Sunday started out with kids playing and waiting patiently for boating/beach time. Marcus terrorized Rocky for a while...what a good dog! He didn't seem to mind at all!

Emma and Reed terrorized Raymond for a while...he didn't seem to mind either :-)

The boys are ready to go...let's get this thing moving!

Marcus had a good time in the sand...oh my!

Julie and I had a great time just relaxing and watching the kids...this is the life!

The boys had a pretty good time too...hi Chad and Marc!

Olivia spent most of the weekend playing with the babies. She is such a little mommy. That is one thing she is really going to miss at daycare...not sure what she will do without her baby fix everyday.

Emma had a pretty good time in the sand too.

We walked along the beach and had a little run in with the law...apparently we are not allowed to have drinks on the beach away from the water. We assume it's because they don't want the 4-wheelers drinking and driving which makes sense. Raymond and Chad just got a "warning"...few.

They had this great slide set up. This is Chad...look at how much air he got!

Marc took Olivia down.

She came up smiling.

Then it was Marcus' turn. He looks a little worried...maybe it's excitement?

Victory!

Raymond let Olivia have the wheel the whole way back. She took her driving job very seriously.

She did pretty good overall...Raymond only had to correct her steering a few times. Emma did keep saying "I don't want her to drive anymore"...I think Olivia was scaring her a bit :-)

Labor Day - Day 1

We originally planned on going to Sun Lakes but only made it as far as Moses Lake. Raymond called us as we were driving and told us his cousin had a great place right on the lake. So we decided that was a better option for us. The bonus was his cousin has a 3-year old for Marcus to play with! This is Reed. These two hit it off right away.

Saturday morning, we hopped on the boats and headed for the sandy beach.

Olivia was ready to go.

We ate lunch on the way...yummy.

When we got there Emma checked out the water. It was perfect to play in.

Then she rolled in the hot sand.

It was perfect sand to play in and we had lots of sand toys.

Emma wanted to see if she could get a sun tan.

Here are all the kids (minus a couple of babies). The Stark girls were with us too. Strange to think they used to be the little ones when we started these Labor Day weekend get togethers...now they are all teens (well almost all of them...Courtney is only 12).

The boys really did play well together. It was nice for Marcus to have a friend. He kept calling Reed his "little buddy".

Quick family photo. Say cheese!

We took the Starks boat out for a little tubing. The kids worked really hard helping to pull the tube in. They were very helpful.

Emma still didn't want to tube behind the boats. She would only float on it off the beach.

This area was actually big sand dunes. There were 4-wheelers behind us and LOTS of sand. We were sitting on hills by the water. The kids thought it was so fun to run and rull down the sandy hills.

It was perfect!

Quick Stark Family Photo.

On our way back in, Raymond let Emma drive the boat.

Olivia got to drive too.

And even Marcus got to drive!

We stopped real quick for the little boys to go tubing. They did awesome and had a blast. Too cute...such little boys on such a big tube...so brave (Chad did go on with them so they weren't totally by themselves).

Pig Out

Marc took the kids to Riverfront Park for Pig Out in the Park on Friday. They have all sorts of food booths from the different area restaurants and lots of fun stuff for kids to do. Marc got some shots of the kids on the big slide with his cell phone...I just wanted to share.

Looks like a lot of fun!

Marc said Marcus was tumbling down most of the time and laughing the whole time.

They went down it over and over again...so fun!

More tumbling by Marcus. Ouch...looks like that one hurt; Marc said he continued to laugh though.

By the time I got off work and joined them all they could talk about was this big blue slide. What great memories :-)