the kids, my parents, my sister, my niece and i spent a week at lake pend oreille in beautiful northern idaho.

the first night, reece was throwing his hook into the water…

by the next day, he was catching fish all by himself with one of topher’s mepps spinners!

uncle buzz and aunt michele have tons of water toys at their lake house…

reece and sasha got out on the jet skis with topher and uncle buzz…

while lorelai played on the beach with meme.

reece also go out on one of the hobie cats with uncle buzz…

and meme got some time on the water, too.

my 95 year old grandfather was up there with us, too. he couldn’t make it down the stairs to the water, but enjoyed the view from the patio…

my parents rented a house for all of us about 6 miles away and we ate dinner there every other night…it was a way for all of us to have some quiet time, but we still had a beautiful view of garfield bay and the lake.

i ran three times while on vacation…this was my halfway/turn around point on my first run.

and, here is where it ended (near the house where we were staying).

running errands by boat is awesome…

on sunday, topher took my sister and i into town by boat so we could do a little birthday shopping for sasha. the girls rode into town with us and back to my aunt and uncle’s house with topher.

reece and sasha made the trip back to town with topher to pick us up.

returning to the lake house, we were greeted by these two little dock dogs…lily and elmo belong to my cousin and his wife…

that’s my cousin, greg…

and, this is his beautiful wife, natalie. our first visit to the lake was for their wedding last august. they just celebrated their first wedding anniversary! (you can see the posts from their wedding here, here, here, and here)

we took the boat out to watch greg on the air chair…he makes it looks way easier than it is.

you can see topher on a jet ski in the background…marley, who is the original dock dog, was sad that she couldn’t come on the boat, so he took her for a ride on the jet ski.

i can’t wait to see the go pro video of all my cousins giving it a try next week (we missed their visit by a week…maybe we can all be there again together next year)!

we celebrated the kids birthdays…july 5th, august 1st, and september 8th.

and, watched the baby bald eagle…

watch us.

the days of playing on the lake melded together…slow, relaxing, fun…i have more photos and video on my phone that i think i will need to add in another post.

looking good for 95…

we took the boat into town for dinner and were joined by my cousin and his wife.

uncle buzz, topher, meme, and aunt michele…a good looking bunch that make this family fun possible.

seriously, life is good at the lake.

saying goodbye is hard, so instead i say, “see you next time.”

home is…one of my happy places.