family fun

Ryan and his fiance, Ashlynn, have been visiting this week. Ryan got here on the 24th of July then took off to Steen's Mtn. Running camp to be a counselor. He got back a week later on the 31st. Ashlynn flew in earlier that afternoon and we were supposed to meet her at the airport - in the airport and not just at the curb - but we got stuck in traffic and she arrived before we did - sorry! Grandparents and cousins came over to meet her that evening and before long all the kids were out in the yard playing tag.
We took off Monday morning for a camping trip to Nehalem Bay State Park.

The ride down. Caylin ducked out of this picture.

Of course, I wanted to take lots of pictures of Ryan and Ashlynn - I think they were trying to hide after a while!

James & Joyce spent Monday with us. With 3 good climbing trees right in our camp site, we had lots of tree climbing going on.

Megan leading us in some campfire tunes with Jeff playing backup - Megan's rendition of Ring of Fire had us all cracking up, and of course - singing along!

We had lots of fun playing at the beach.

The sun broke through Monday late afternoon, it was mostly cloudy the rest of the time.

If you look through the grass you can see Ryan, Ashlynn, Cameron, and Megan.

Grandma, keeping covered but enjoying the beach.

A mix of good times! We have Travis with us for the week also - he's staying with Nicole & Spencer. It's always fun to be with cousins.
I have to mention our camp food. We sure enjoy using Dad's big grill. I made fajitas the first night, James & Joyce brought their hand crank icecream maker and we had fresh vanilla icecream with brownies that Nicole made. For breakfast Tuesday morning I made French toast (the kind we had at girl's camp). Spencer fixed Mongolian grill on Tuesday night - I think that will be a new camp favorite! Dad made Dutch oven peach cobbler that night and we finished up our camping food with Grandpa Waite's famous pancakes for breakfast this morning. I didn't get any pictures of that because my camera batteries died - oh well. Didn't get the crabs either. Spencer and Travis caught a bunch this morning.
It was a fun camping trip and I think Ashlynn feels pretty comfortable with us and definitely welcome.