After a great time riding the bike trails in Northern Idaho, we headed back down to Hells Canyon to meet up with the rest of our kids and their families, and other family and friends. We stopped at a pull-out along side the road just above Riggins ID and spent the night along the Salmon River. We have never done that before, but we felt pretty safe with the three of us traveling together. It was so hot that night, and with no power for air conditioning, we almost put out our lounge chairs and slept outside!
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Here we are at McCormick Park at Hells Canyon, doing what we do best there--sitting around relaxing and trying to keep cool in the triple digit weather! Here are Shay and Heidi,
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Dan and Jill,
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Terry and my niece Danielle,
our friend Larry from Oregon and my brother Bill (who started this get-together about 20 years ago),
my brother Ron and his wife Kathy,
and our daughter-in-law Shannon and their son Josh,
Another favorite thing to do at McCormick is fish! A favorite spot to fish is from Grandpa Howie's pontoon boat. Boe and Sean and diehard fishermen!
These are only a few pictures of all of the fish we caught! Here is Sean with a couple of his catches.
Boe and Tyson hold up some of their trophies!
Chaz and his fish share the limelight with Uncle Ryan (Sarah's hubby).
The adults tried to keep up with the kids. Here, Dan (Jill's hubby) shows off one of his many fish he caught.
Our friend Elaine from Oregon, went out with Bill in his boat and showed the guys how it is done!
I think that Bill got the trophy for the biggest crappy! That is always our goal--to catch that big crappy.
Uncle Bill (all of the kids' favorite uncle, of course) kept his boat busy pulling all of the kids on the tube. His goal was to "dump" the bigger kids, but he was careful when Kamber and Emily asked, "Please don't dump us!" and just gave them a fun ride.
All of the cousins (plus friends) had so much fun together. I don't think I ever saw even one disagreement between them the whole time! Here are Jenna, Aleksia, Kamber, Emily, Luke, Trestin, Cassiah, Wesley, Karch, Zoe, Ryley, and Josh.
More cousin time with Aleksia, Destiney, Nate,Sean, Marissa, Spencer, and Emily.
Josh, Nicolas, and Wesley are hanging out--maybe looking a little bored. Could that be because they have video games in their hands instead of fishing poles!
Lots of water fun every day, especially when we brought out the water guns!
Shay, Sean, and Dan floated the river in the float tubes. They caught quite a few fish. Shay said he out-fished the other two because he was fly fishing and the fish liked his flys better than worms or grubs. He is really getting pretty good at fly fishing.
Shay actually gave his dad his very own "fly rod" a while back. It also did a very good job during our stay at McCormick!
Uncle Bill found a special gift for Kamber--a beautiful monarch butterfly. It had been injured and I am sure it enjoyed all of the attention from Kamber and everyone else during the time it spent with us until Kamber turned it loose under a bush where it "disappeared" by the next morning. She was sure it made it into butterfly heaven!
Lindee, along with all of the other girls, had fun spending time with the only baby in camp, Becky's granddaughter from Oregon. They all got to take turns helping to babysit her and then Elaine "paid" them all with beautiful rings she got from Heidi at her jewelry display (which was next to my Scentsy display.)
Another favorite thing we do when the Howards get together is play pinochle. Here, Terry, Travis, Ryan (with Chaz coaching him), and Jill playing the first game of our stay (the first of many.)
We also like other games, like Mexican Train dominoes. Everyone seems to have their own set of rules. Bill, Tyson, Ryan (taking the picture), and I had a hoot playing with Larry and Elaine. Jill and Terry watch in the background.
Well, here we are, taking it easy again--Jill, Ryan, Ryan (Sarah's hubby), Travis, and Terry. McCormick if a really pretty park!
Our kids convinced Terry's brother and his wife Alice to come to McCormick this year. Here they are, standing with Larry (friend from Oregon) and Jill. One night all the kids, Travis, Shay, Ryan, Sarah, and Jill, talked Ron & Alice into a game of pinochle. They played until about 1:00 in the morning and Ron & Alice came out the grand champions!
Michelle, Ron & Alice's daughter, and her daughter M'Kenna came for a couple of nights. She grew up around all of our kids and now they don't see each other very often. So, it was really fun having her there. Hopefully, this will start an ongoing tradition for more Ron & Alice's family to join us at McCormick.
Marci, my sister Lorrie's daughter, was there with her family--Taylor, Tanner, Tianna, and Trista. They are all such cute kids!
One evening, our grandson Spencer, Travis's son, put on a concert for us. All of the little girls did a cute pre-show performance for us, and then Spencer played the guitar and sang. I counted about 63 people there in our group!
Spencer does a good job. He has actually recorded some CD's. I really like his pink guitar strap!
That crazy red-headed son of ours, Ryan, actually brought his ping-pong table with him! It was a great hit. Here he is playing Shay, with the kids watching (well, some of them are watching and some playing under the table!) I don't think anyone ever beat Ryan--although Jill came pretty close!
Danielle had all of her bow-making stuff with her again and the girls totally enjoyed making beautiful bows for their hair. Thanks, again, Dano! Sarah with helping her with Emily, Kamber, Destiney, Josh (just watching,) and Lindee.
And Danielle's hubby, Than, brought back the popular activity of making of fishing lures. Here he is with Chaz, Wesley, Garrick, and Michelle's daughter, M'Kenna (watching.)
Kathy also helped the kids make sets of Jenga blocks. Tyson built a tower with his. He was very proud of it and I had to be careful opening and closing the door when I went into their trailer to take a picuture of it!
Late afternoon of the last day Travis and his family were staying, we had a terrific storm--wind and lots of rain! We lowered their tent, with a lot of their stuff in it, and they had to bail water off of it before they could even raise it again. Needless to say, there was about four inches of water inside of it. They had been trying to decide whether to stay the night or go to Emmett and spend the night at Lorrie's (actually, our house.) Well, this helped to make up their mind!
All of the tenters had all of their stuff out on the lawn, trying to dry them before it got dark. Danielle's tent pole broke and their rain fly got torn. But, other than that, things just got wet. I can't believe Bill's 25+ year-old tent made it through another storm! Lorrie and Ron are getting the wet things spread out.
The tents all got put back up and air mattresses dry before bed time. With borrowed bedding and clothes, everyone survived the night.
We had quite a clothesline stretched out among the trees!
My brother Mike and wife Janet came up. Here they are, visiting with me and Lorrie after the storm. They had several extras in their camper during the worse part of storm, after we got all of the tents laid down. We all had extras in our RV's. I think Jill counted about 14 kids in her trailer!
While everyone was trying to get things put back together after the storm, the rest of us put all of our food together and we had a big buffet! It wouldn't be McCormick without at least one storm while we are there!
After the storm was over, the kids were kind of restless. So, they started gathering up all of the limbs that got blown out of the trees. Here are Kamber, Jenna, Ryley, and Emily (with Uncle Ron in the background) doing their part.
Some of the boys, Wesley, Nicolas, and Boe, with Ryley, Zoe, and Kamber in the back, pitched in to help, too.
The next morning, the camp host, Everett, was so surprised, especially when all the kids started helping him load the limbs into his Mule. That evening, he came over and gave all of us a free pass to stay one night. He said he couldn't believe the kids had done what they did, especially without anyone telling them to! Good job, kids!
We did a special thing this year. I brought all of my Mom's jewelry that had been in her hope chest since she died in 2004. Lorrie and I had already gone through it and kept a few things. We laid all the rest of it out and the granddaughters took turns taking the things they wanted. The granddaughters there were Marcie, Jill, Destiny, Sarah, and Danielle,
Then the great-granddaughters got their turn. Jenna, Emily, Kamber, Ryley, Zoe (a friend), Aleksia, and Tianna are in the picture. Also there were Taylor, Trista, Lindee, and Cassiah. Some of the boys didn't think it was fair that only the girls got something, so several of them also got a keepsake.
All of our kids and grandkids were at McCormick, except Ryan's wife Lori (we missed her, but she had another reunion she needed to be at). So, we got to take a family picture. It had been two years since everyone had been together. I will list names for all who aren't sure who is whom, starting with the top row: Heidi & Shay, Spencer (Travis), Travis & Shannon, Susan & Terry, Dan & Jill, Ryan, Sarah & Ryan. Middle row: Sean, Marissa (Shay), Ryley (Ryan), Nathan, Nicolas (Travis), Jenna (Sarah), Boe (Jill), Wesley (Ryan), Luke (Sarah), Tyson, Emily (Shay), Kamber (Jill), Josh (Travis), Lindee (Sarah), Chaz (Ryan), JT/John (Sarah). What a great family and what a great time!
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