A little vacation - long!

Spent a little time over at Lake Curlew with my brother and sisters and my Dad. This is Marilynn, Dad, me, and Beth just outside the cabin. I love that tree that hangs out over the lake and provides shade all morning and early afternoon keeping it from getting too hot.
Lake Curlew is in northeast Washington, about 8 hour drive to get back to my house with a few stops along the way. Of course we hit rush hour traffic in Seattle, on Friday :(

Republic is a very small town and Lake Curlew is about 15 miles from town. We stayed at Black Beach resort in a lakefront cabin. It's not much of a resort and the cabin was pretty dumpy...but it had everything we needed. My sister Beth and my dad and I shared the cabin.

Here's Dad, Beth and Mitch chatting in front of the cabin. I love that it is on the lake and has a screened porch. It's down at the very end of the resort and there weren't many others around us. The cabin next door was only occupied one of the nights we were there. That made it nice with the dogs we didn't have to be so diligent with the leashes. I brought a baby gate to confine them on the porch that helped.

My sister Marilynn and her family stayed at the resort in their RV. It was a short walk from where we were.

Here are the girls, Rachel, Marilynn's daughter and Camile, Connie's daughter working on beading outside Marilynn's RV.

My sister Connie and her SO, Jeff have some property at the end of the lake that they are starting to build on. They were staying in their trailer there, my brother Mitch and his son also stayed there in their loft and my sister Barb set up her tent over with them.

Here's a view of their property from the road. The peaked structure is their shed with a loft. All that they have developed so far...Jeff did the work himself.

Connie with their new pup, Remi, at the trailer.

Here's the view from their trailer site.

We had various arrival and departure days but did all manage to be there for a couple of days together. We were only missing Jim and his family, Beth's boys and Marlene. Too bad they weren't able to make it.

It was a nice relaxing time together. The fishing was good and the boys fished most of the day and evening. Took out time for tubing in the afternoon, of course. And Tyler was helpful in being able to go into town to fill the gas tanks for the boat.

Here's Tyler, Mitch's son working on his fishing pole.

And Jace, Marilynn's son trying to get his line untangled....

And Colton, Connie's son, plotting on how he is going to win the Bass Tournament held one night down at Connie and Jeff's place.

The kids and Jeff played in the boat tubing and trying to wakeboard...rumor has it that only Rachel was able to get up on the wakeboard...first try too! Girls rule!

What a load! Are you sure you can pull anything? Do you all have your lifejackets? Jeff is very conscientious about that....

There also was a little kayaking...Here's Marilynn bringing the kayak down from Connie's property to the RV site.
This is Rachel coming out to meet her on the dock by the RV. It's almost hard to call this a dock...maybe they are going for a living dock! It's growing all sorts of stuff!

And Mike took the kayak the rest of the way down to our cabin docks. Then the kids had some fun trying it out too.
Dad and Beth spent several hours scanning old slides and naming them.

Here's Dad horsing around with us kids...me, Beth and Jim. Get aload of those drapes, and the lamp!

And here we are in front of the only car he ever bought new...probably at Easter. They had a good time looking at all the old pictures.

I spent alot of time on the screened porch looking out at the lake and got the binding sewed down on my Bargello bowl quilt and napping.

The cabin even as rustic as it is proved to be a gathering space...it was on the lake and near the dock where the kids could fish and swim and boat.

The dogs loved swimming and jumping off the dock! Above is my Buddy, a swimming fool with his life jacket on! Below is Beth's dog, Hershey whose job in life is to retreeve, she just can't get enough of it.

Poor thing goes and goes and then is just pooped out. She kept sneaking up on the furniture she wanted a soft place to rest!

Can you see the orange shag carpet? The furniture was all pretty beat up and there wasn't a plate, glass or cup that matched. But my bed was comfy and the bathroom was only a few steps away and I loved sitting on the porch and feeling the fresh air.And the major point in its favor was it had running water! So those staying at Connie's could shower. The only worries were what we were going to have for dinner. Needed to go to town at least once a day to pick up something or other. We came up with some pretty good eating. Here's Connie and Jeff getting the barbeque going.


They have a great fire pit on their property...just right for fires at night!We had great campfires at Connie's property.

This is Jace roasting a marshmallow and Dad keeping an eye on him.And here is Camille trying to get her's just right for a somore!


This is Shawna, Marilynn's oldest daughter, with her new little puppy, Lily, trying to stay warm.


And Connie and Mitch around the fireside, trying to avoid the smoke.

All in all it was a nice trip. Of course I forgot to mention there were the boys playing board games late into the night and thru the afternoon windstorm. And Camille playing dominos with anyone who she could get. Dad, Beth and I watched movies in the evenings before bed, as there was no TV or radio. We watched The Vanishing, American Beauty, Enchanted and Pay it Forward. The only one I had seen before was Pay it Forward...it still was the best, but Enchanted was a close runner up. The others were just weird, not my cup of tea.

We also had to make a trip the the ER...Dad one evening while we were getting ready for dinner started talking nonsense. He knew he wasn't saying what he wanted to say and kept trying but it was all jibberish. After it didn't seem to be getting any better I convinced him we should visit the ER...if it was gone when we got there we wouldn't have to go in. He was improving but still knew he wasn't right when we got there...about a 20 minute drive...so we went in. Had to open up the ER...he was the only patient. The nurse was great and the doc came in, he had a CT and some lab work. The CT had to be transmitted to a different center for interpretation so it took about 40 minutes to get results. He was being monitored on a cardiac monitor while we waited. Before the results came back he was back to normal. All and all his symptoms maybe lasted an hour or so. Diagnosed as a TIA. So we left and went back and had dinner and a campfire. All in all we spent about 1 1/2 hours there...not too bad for an ER visit. Thankfully it was only a TIA because I don't think we would have been able to get treatment soon enough if it was a stroke. They would have to send him to Spokane which is at least 2 or more hours away.

That was my second visit to the ER in Republic in two visits to Lake Curlew...last time it was that Colton had caught his ear with a fish hook. I'm not sure what that says...

It was a good trip and great relaxing visit with everyone. I'm glad I'll have this memory for the summer of 2008. Back to civilazation now...and quilting!