90th and 1st

July 19th we celebrated Chad's Grandpa's 90th Birthday. He had family from Kansas, Idaho, Oregon and Washington come to help celebrate. Cassidy was able to meet Susannah from Idaho and I think it's a good thing these two cuties don't live closer together...TROUBLE!

Cassidy with her Great Grandpa

All the great grandkids...

Chad took the brood to the hay field for a little wiffleball/softball game.

After the game, everyone needed to cool off with popsicles. Cassidy wasn't about to be left out of the game and popsicles, so Grandma gave in...

This was our attempt to get Cass down for a nap....yah right!

On the following Wednesday Cassidy and I went for our first ride on Tucker. She made it a hour, and so did I! We're still figuring it out, but the sippy cup and snack cup tethered to the saddle definitely helped.

Thursday found the cousin clan at our house bright and early with Grandma and Grandpa to go on the 1st annual crabbing and camping trip. After two boatloads of gear and people we landed at our campsite with enough gear for I think a week!

We had a little snafu with the extra low tide and some mud...but we got the boat back into the water after the ultimate leg workout and about 45 minutes being waste deep in the lovely bay mud. Always an adventure!

Then the fun really began with the rope swing. Even Jerry got a good swing, followed by Caden, Brady, Lindsey, Alexa, and of course Cassidy

With the tide out it was a great time to do some beach exploring. Cassidy really liked the kelp and wasn't about to be left behind. Her cousins are so great to her and made sure she was always included.

When the tide came back in, it was time to go get some crab!

and we found the monster of the ocean

The two boys with the prize catch and another good sized crab.

We had a sudden summer storm roll in, complete with thunder and lightning. Check out the rain bouncing off the water and the sun shining not too far away. It was amazing, but caught us a little off guard. Thank goodness Jerry was in camp and able to scramble to get things covered up. The girls didn't even have the rain fly on our tent, it was too warm! It rained a little off and on through the night, but not enough to really bother us.

Crabbing wasn't great, but we got enough to have with dinner and give each cousin a lesson in how to clean. They were great students and the crab, like most things, tasted even better camping!

Kit took Cassidy back to our house for the night. Here is the camp crew that stayed.

The next day the girls decided they wanted to hang out with Grandma and Cassidy while Chad, Jerry, Brady, Caden, and I continued our hunt for crab. However, after pulling pots for most of the day that had lots of crab but few legal ones, we decided to do a little more beach exploring and found a new adventure....clamming! The boys, including Chad and Jerry, would watch for the spouts of water shoot up and then frantically dig using a clam shell! They actually did pretty well, and we got quite a few.

I think the kids had a great time, but were pretty worn out by the time they got all their gear back into Grandma and Grandpa's cars and headed home. I heard a rumor that one was even asleep before hitting the highway! Hopefully we'll make this a new tradition. It's always great when all the kids can come together.