daily cyn: Banks Lake 2013

We just had our annual trip to Banks Lake from the 17th -25th of August. Darren was anxious to get out of town as soon as he got off work. We ended up leaving on a Thursday evening after work. By the time we got on the road it was past 10:00pm. Crazy. But Darren didn't want to spend a moment of vacation at home. We spent the night in the trailer up by Snoqualmie Pass. Gavin's girlfriend Michaela came with us for the entire time and it was nice having her around. Drew stayed back with the Pedigo's and came with them on Saturday. We took Brooke Pedigo with us. She and Gillian are quite the pair.

It's amazing to see how our Banks Lake outings have changed through the years. During the early years everyone was in tents and Darren wasn't able to come because of work. Gradually we moved to a bigger sight, invited new people (Pedigo's and Richey's) and people started getting campers and trailers. I never thought we would be trailer people but I've got to say I love it! Camping for 10 days would be a lot different if we had to stay in tents. Plus, our sight doesn't have running water.

We debated on whether or not to bring the dogs but we ended up bringing them all. They had a blast. Shadow swam a lot and played fetch. George ran around peeing on everyone's coolers and chairs and any other stationary object. Roxy played with her brother Coulee (Pedigo's chihuahua from the same litter as Roxy). Holly followed me on runs and loved riding on the boat.

Gavin and Michaela jumping off the cliff

This is always the highlight of our year. We feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends to share this time with. All the kids get along so well and everyone has a blast. We had fun crafts. Jared cooked a big breakfast every morning. Lots of tubing and surfing and sunburns and mosquito bites. And to top it off Darren and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary there. We seem to always be at Banks Lake during our anniversary and have started a tradition of going to a Mexican restaurant in Electric City called La Presa. And my new favorite is getting smoothies from the ice cream/smoothie truck across from Safeway. Yum. I think I gained 10 pounds.