Lakecation 2014

Let’s do the math:

10 days (8 full days plus 2 half days)

9 nights (and 9 sunsets!)

10 grown-up Browns

2 pregnant bellies (which stayed away from the boat)

5 kid cousins

4 Hondas

1 large luxurious lakehouse

15 bottomless appetites

100 grocery trips (well, it seemed like it)

9 enormous dinners

3 bows with arrows

1 boat

2 kayaks

1 lake

100s of fireworks across the lake (Independence Day!)

100 story books (more or less)

2 bald eagles

4 laptops

4 cameras

8 iPhones

9 iPads (holy cow—but oh, those bluetooth Ticket to Ride games!)

200+ pictures (consider yourself warned…)

= it all adds up to another awesome Brown Family Lakecation success!

The view from the windows in the room Jeff and I sleep in at the lake house shows nearly 180 degrees of the lake. On the fourth of July, we laid in bed and were surrounded by fireworks! Luxury in its simplest form.

The closest we got to a Patriotic cousin picture, ha ha. Shortly after this, Rose’s hair went crazy and everyone changed into swimsuits.

BBQ chicken

Jesse’s guitar jams. Ambience.

BJ’s pizza: Tradition!

Stories! Grama Meri kept the house stocked with stacks of library books.

Ikea with the girls

Jesse, Brad, and Kyle tried playing catch at high speeds. I don’t think it ever worked all the way.

Meanwhile, Dani and Mel perfected the delicate dismount, barely getting their hair wet. Masters.

 

L’artiste at work

 

Intensity redefined. On the last day we were together, my brother Brad rode the 204 mile STP—Seattle to Portland—bike ride. All in one day. And you thought runners were crazy.

Kids tubing. Jeff and Rose have a lovely view of Mt. Rainier in the background.

Brown boys—my Dad and brothers

Swimming with Aunt Mel

Dani at The Griddle. Dani was KEY to our quality meals. Mom and Dani were the deluxe dynamic duo in the kitchen.

Game time.

After a 5 year break from his last painful water skiing effort, Jeff was ready to try a little wakeboarding. He was the best first-timer this family has ever seen.

Only sheer exhaustion could get these cousins to sleep in the same room—mostly we had to put them in separate rooms.

The kids swam and swam and swam!

Jay was in boy cousin heaven with Steve and Dan.

All those water sports turned the kids into zombies. Luckily we brought a few movies along for those long afternoons.

Honda, anyone?

Our favorite place—the kitchen (blazingly HOT, feebly air conditioned kitchen with west-facing giant windows though it was…)

My sister Em and I are due 3 weeks apart. (both having girls—yay!) We thought our bellies were so big and that these pictures would be more…visually stunning or something, ha ha.

Brown girls…just missing Dani.

Isn’t Chase just the cutest? He’s a little Jesse Jr. except so blond he looks bald.

Speaking of bald—the bald eagles!! They live somewhere near the lakehouse and we saw at least one of them swoop by the windows every day. I LOVE them from afar—those beaks are long and their eyes are piercing! I used my binoculars well. Jeff and I spent 15 or 20 minutes one night trying to take a picture of them through my binoculars. The picture above is my camera at full zoom, and the picture below is my camera at full zoom held up to the binoculars.

Ahh! He’s looking right at me!

I love my family. We know lakes. We know food. We do Lakecations right.

Swimming

Summertime is swimming time.

1. We put the blow up pool in our backyard:

Can we take a moment to admire that grass? Go Jeff go!

2. Jay and Rose took a 2 week swim lesson in June at the Grandview pool:

Diving board time! Jay was cautious, but he jumped off the diving board to his teacher by himself most days. Rose had to be lowered by her arms halfway to the water. I think the main reason she had such a hard time going under water was because the Grandview pool water is freezing, and her skinny little body quaked at the sight of it. Jay and Rose didn’t really learn much from swimming lessons, but you have to start somewhere, right?

 

3. We have visited the fun Prosser pool a few times (the water is much warmer at the shallow kids section of the Prosser pool):

Jay practiced going under water lots of times.

4. We even braved the frigid deep waters of the Grandview pool together one evening.

5. I have never had a prego-belly in the summer before, but I have heard numerous times that swimming feels great when you’re pregnant! So I was looking forward to giving it a try. I should’ve known better. Nothing feels great to me when I’m pregnant. My body simply balks and rebels every single minute of the 9 month ordeal. Swimming was no different. I felt just as uncomfortable and queasy and round in the water as I did on dry land. I returned my enormous baggy belly bathing suit, (my belly won’t be big enough to fill it up till after the pool closes anyways), deciding that on the few occasions that I do get into the water past my knees this summer, an old stretched out tank top and swim shorts will do the trick just fine in place of actual swimwear.  

At least the kids like swimming!