Lee Family Reunion

Mom and dad graciously hosted a Lee family reunion at their house in Vernon the weekend of August 22 for all us kids and families. There are six of us total, three of which are married, two of which have kids, and all six of us with very busy and exciting lives. None of us live in the same city, and this past year we were spread over three provinces and two states. I'm so glad that we all made it a priority to make it home for this reunion, it was amazing to see everyone and we had so much fun!

My very cool little bro and sis Jared and Britt soaking up some rays and enjoying some much needed r and r.

Rani and LJ (Jess and Matt's kids) with our very own little nank.

Two little blondies - Nate and Ben played sooooooooooooooooo well this trip. They were little buds that did everything together.

We love our cousins!

We did a lot of this: swimming and visiting. It was a gorgeous weekend so we spent ALL of it outside.

On saturday afternoon we had the Olympics games in the pool. We had a junior Olympics and a Senior Olympics as well. These were the judges for the Senior games. They were very biased towards the fun uncles I felt, and rewarded very low scores to their hard working, sacrificing and very loving mothers. Hmmmm

Darn these pics are out of order. Nonetheless, here are our athletes with their prizes. What better prize then a candy mouth that makes it look like you have funny teeth? Grandma Lee is the best!

Nate ate a lot of fudgesicles over the week we were at Grandma's and enjoyed every single one.

The judges. You can't read the score cards but Jordan received scores of 10's for doing this:

Jordan would do a trick and immediately check scores as soon as she emerged. I'm afraid the apple does not fall far from the tree.

We had an opening ceremony with all the athletes (Ben and Nate opted out because of injuries), these kids did awesome in the races, the diving competitions, the water basketball, and the silly jump competition.

Jorji during the opening ceremony parade of athletes. Yeah, we're that cool. And just so you kno we had a parade of athletes for the senior games as well.

We had a little photo shoot of the fam one morning and got some great pics, many of which I still need to get from my mom and dad's computer but in the meantime enjoy these babies. I love this pyramid of what we call the 'original' kids.

We tried to do the same with the grandkids and as you can see we almost did it! Nate wanted to be on the bottom.

One night we went to Kin Beach for a bocci tournament and a chance for the kids to play at the park. It was a beautiful night. Oh yeah, Jess and I kicked everyone's trash at the tournament, including wins against the two Jared's (favourites at the tournament) and Britt and Zach (other favourites).

The bros

Jorji and Olivia.

Jess and the kids were here for a week and we had so much fun hanging out with them. One of the highlights was tubing down the Shuswap river. So much fun and hopefully I'll have pics from that to post soon! So it is now September and tomorrow is the first day of school. I'm excited for the new school year to begin but am a little sad that our incredible summer is now over. It truly was an amazing summer full of fun with family and friends, incredible weather almost EVERY single day, plenty of beach and pool days and lots of adventure. Summer we will miss you. But Fall, we can't wait to see what you will bring.

Doug and Bernice kept Jordan and Nathan for a week after the August long weekend and brought the kids home the next weekend. While they were here we were able to go to Auntie Barb's cabin on the Shuswap (boat access only-very cool) for the day. The kids just can't seem to get enough of the beach, water and the seadoos. And neither can we!


Fun with Grandma King and the Claw

Here's little Nate, the bravery of our kids never ceases to amaze me. Yeah, he's three.

I think Jared should have been a gymnast or a diver, check out that perfect pike position.

Here goes Jorji!

We found this rope swing just down from the cabin and Jared and the kids had a blast doing their thing.

Little Lu LOVED the one on one attention that she got while the big kids were away. In fact we're a little afraid that we have created a bit of a monster. She was one spoiled little girl during that week and we are still dealing with the repercussions.

While Jordan and Nathan were spending the week at Grandma and Grandpa King's house in Castlegar, we decided it was a perfect opportunity to build a fort for them as a surprise. It's something that we've been wanting to do for awhile but just haven't had the chance. We found a great plan online and had a blast cutting and building this project. Well, Jared did most of the work while I was quality control. I did have some fun with his mitre saw however as I cut all the siding! So fun!

So while the kids were partying at Grandma's we were busy doing this:

While also dealing with this:

And the result was this:

Three very happy kids!!

It was such a fun surprise! The kids didn't get home till dark but we did the big 'reveal' anyway. They love it and have moved right in. It has a really cool trap door underneath that they can close and thus have complete privacy. In fact the other day I asked Nathan to come over for a moment to help me with something and he took off for the playhouse and then said while inside "I can't mom, I'm up here!"