Norton Camping Reunion 2021

The end of our summer has been very busy so I'm back tracking one event at a time. The very last weekend of July my side of the family had a reunion camping trip in Donnelly, ID. This year we decided to drive two vehicles (the truck and the van) for camping so it would be a little roomier for the kids and we wouldn't have to use a trailer. We drove up Thurs July 29th and stayed through Sunday morning Aug 1st. Originally we were going to go home on Saturday but I convinced Curtis that we needed to stay one extra night because we wouldn't get to spend any time with Colby's family since they came up late Friday night. We stayed in the Chalet RV park right off the highway in Donnelly along with my brother Stillman's family, my sister Tamara's family and my brother Colby's family.  My sister Melissa and her family stayed in the SISCRA RV park close to where our family cabin used to be. And my parents stayed in McCall in their time share condo. Colby's family and ours were the only ones sleeping in tents. All the other siblings stayed in their camper RV's. We had a great view for our tent spot and you couldn't even tell we were right off the highway. 

There are cows in the field a little ways back from us. Instead of hearing a rooster in the morning we would hear the cows, ha ha! Fortunately they were far enough away that we couldn't smell them!

We had a nice tent spot with lots of shade and beautiful scenery. Charlotte and Alice stayed in the little tent in this picture. I forgot to get a picture of the whole campsite after we got everything set up. We had two other big tents. Because the double cot they used is kind of big the boys ended up having one tent to themselves while Nikki shared with us.

Sometimes you have to take a selfie if you want to be in some pictures.

The evening that we arrived we were told that we were going to have a beach BBQ and that the Cleavers had a really big surprise that we should be there for. As soon as Melissa had said on our Facebook group that there was a big surprise and that we REALLY wanted to be there I instantly had the idea that it was my nephew Blake coming home but honestly I had no idea when he was scheduled to come home but I knew it was some time in August. Melissa had to white lie a little after I had guessed that. I ran with it thinking that the surprise must be something else because she said Blake's coming home the end of August. We thought maybe they rented jet skis or something. Who knew I was right?? The surprise was Blake and he did it in style by riding into shore on his wake board. It was still kind of a surprise for me and it was great! After he surprised us all we cooked up some hot dogs and hamburgers to have a BBQ at the beach. Then the kids swam in the lake while most of the adults visited.

Most of the kids swimming. Blake is the one in the middle back wearing a hat and white t-shirt. The t-shirt had a print of a necktie and Elder name tag on it.

Curtis got in with the girls.

Friday and Saturday we spent time in the water and doing things in McCall, etc. Tamara's and Colby's families showed up Friday evening. Colby's family didn't get there until about 10:30pm so my family and Stillman and Michelle helped get them set up in their tents next to us. 

Hanging out in Stillman's camper and watching a little bit of the olympics Thursday night.

And of course snacking. We brought a big bag of candy from bulk so we could share with everyone.

So much for getting away from electronics while camping. It doesn't happen when there are campers 😆 I caught Garrett playing video games with his cousins.

I found some pictures that Curtis took on his phone so you can kind of see our camp set up where we had the big tents.

Nikki sleeping.

Jack sleeping.

Eating breakfast with my girls.

That's a good looking cook!

Finally Nikki and Jack joined us.

Getting ready to cook breakfast.

The RV park has a nice playground so the girls had fun playing on it multiple times.

Friday morning our family were the only ones interested in finding the frisbee disc golf course in McCall. We had never done this course yet so we wanted to try it. There was a playground near the course and Jack ended up watching the little girls at the playground while Nikki, Garrett, Curtis and I all played. Although right after we started Alice needed to go potty so Jack calls me because there's no bathroom near by. I had to come back and drive her down the road a bit to the Subway so she could go there. Curtis continued playing with Nikki and Garrett until I got back and then we started over.

When I got back from taking Alice to use the bathroom there was a deer near the playground just looking for food.

It was fun to try this course but it was hard because of all the trees and vegetation. We kept hitting trees and losing discs (fortunately finding them eventually)

Playing a little tetherball after our golf game was over.

We were plenty hot by the time we finished playing and were very ready to get in the water. Everyone (except Tamara's and Colby's families, who were not there yet) joined up in McCall to find a nice spot for paddle boarding and swimming at the river. It was very slow moving so a good spot to swim. There was one point where I let Nathan and Blake throw me in the water to show my girls that it was okay because Nathan had thrown both of them in the water without their permission. He did it to Alice on Thursday after she went on the boat with Curtis. I was shocked to hear he had done that but at the same time I did not get mad at him because well she didn't cry and really there was no harm done. She was just very shocked as well. Apparently he had tricked Charlotte the very next day and threw her in at the river. Needless to say they didn't trust him after that!

The paddle boards belong to Stillman's and Melissa's families. The kayaks are Dad's. The only water toy we brought was the little black inner tube.

Dad and Laverne had too much sun from coming out here the day before on their kayaks and got burned so they were content to stay in the shade and watch along with Grandma.

After swimming everyone met up at a restaurant called "My Father's Place" where they serve burgers, ice cream and lots of other things. I ended up ordering halibut fish and chips. It was good and very filling!

By the time we got back to camp Tamara's family had arrived. They brought both of their dogs and their new kitten with them. They were camping for a whole week so it was easier to just bring the animals. We didn't mind the kitten. He's so cute!

Can you tell we're sisters? 😁 They just kept the kitten in the camper most of the time. I think Katie tried taking him on a walk with a harness on at one point on Saturday. (She was at girl's camp until Saturday and Chris had to go back to Nampa to pick her up)

We knew there was rain predicted in the forecast for Saturday afternoon and evening so we decided to head over to Boulder Creek Beach in the morning, which is near our old family cabin. We finally had everyone there, although Colby and Cindy had to go to McCall for some stuff so we took their boys to the beach with us and they came later. I did not end up skiing during this camping trip because my right knee was really bothering me Saturday morning. When we first arrived on Thursday the water was too choppy from the wind so it was a tubing day that day. Funny thing is, I never even got in the boat at all during this trip. Saturday was cloudy and not as warm so I didn't even feel like getting in the water this time. But that didn't stop most everyone else!

Even Cindy's son Michael came and they worked on building a sand castle. Nikki enjoyed visiting with him. She felt like he actually liked talking to her, which is something she has not felt from her other cousins for awhile. I think it helped that they had the same taste in music 😆

We had sun when we first arrived but not long after we got all set up the clouds started rolling in.

This is the Cleaver's boat and they brought their dog Aussie on it. He's such a cute dog!

We had packed up most of our stuff when it started to sprinkle rain but it didn't last. Then Colby and Cindy showed up. So those who were done swimming played some Uno, that I happened to bring in the van that day, while others stayed or got back in the water to swim with Colby and Cindy.

Later we met up at Stillman's camper where we cooked up some food and played some minute to win it games that Nikki and I had brought. Our family provided some kabobs and fortunately we were able to share with lots of family or we would have been stuck with a lot of leftovers! By the time we did the games the wind picked up so we weren't able to do some of them that involved using plastic cups but some of them we could still do. It also started to rain while we were playing games. Fortunately we had a canopy from the camper and another canopy set up to cover us.

This was totally not planned but they happened to be wearing the same shirts!

We tried cup stacking first but the wind picked up and made it incredibly difficult so Blake and Alex were the only ones who got to do this event.

We switched from stacking on the table to just racing to see who could rotate their cups in a stack the fastest. 

We even got mom and dad to do it. Such good sports!

After our minute to win it games we switched over to some card games and the younger kids watched a movie. We ended the day with it raining and I was worried about what was going to happen the next morning when we needed to eat breakfast and pack up our tent site but my prayers were answered. Even after it lightly rained (it sounded worse on the tent than it actually was) most of the night it finally stopped toward the morning and the time that we would get up.  It was dry and the sun even shone that morning just in time for us to pack up and head home. It was a great trip and a good time!