Birch Bay Part One: Fun at the Condo

As always, we spent the last week in July at Birch Bay for the annual Bean Family reunion. Rick's entire family was able to be there, so it was a wonderful week.

The week is always filled with lots of activities, but my favorite moments always seem to be spent hanging out in our condo or sitting out on the big lawn in the condominium complex.


The first night brought a beautiful sunset, a lightning storm, and a power outage. Everybody came over to our condo and we sat in the dark and quoted movie lines all night.

Newlyweds: Kirk and Whitney

One morning while the girls went to breakfast, Rick and Kirk organized a scavenger hunt for the kids. I love that Rick did this. He could have easily just let Gwen watch TV until I got back, especially since he had Fiona with him. But, he is an awesome dad. They had a great time. Gwen LOVES being with her older cousins. It makes her feel like such a big girl.

Gwen, Rebekah, Katie and Ryan

Snacking on Otter Pops after a hard scavenger hunt
The girls doing art together

They also played with the dress-up dolls and with the pop beads. Later when we were looking at the photos, Rick was cracking up when he discovered that Kirk was playing with the dolls after all the kids had moved on to the beads.

Here's the same photo closer up. Kirk is clearly accessorizing his doll.

It was also nice just to have down time at our pad with just our little family. Fiona's need for frequent feedings and naps forced us to slow our pace a little bit. It made for a relaxing vacation!

Trying to make Fiona smile- or maybe Fiona is making Gwen smile

Our condo was also the destination each night for games and food. Everybody else has older children that can be left alone in their condos except for us. So each night after the kids were down, everybody would show up to our place with games, food, and baby monitors in hand.

Andy made a sandwich out of pringles, rice chips, and oreos.

Another great thing about Birch Bay is the opportunity to spend time with extended family. I'm in love with Kari (in a non-gross way), the wife of Rick's cousin, Greg. We were excited to have her and cute Max come over to play with toys and make fruit loop necklaces. I think Kari and I actually made the necklaces. The kids were too busy eating the fruit loops.

The big lawn was great for hula-hooping and bubbles, and socializing.

We also spontaneously made up a new game while hanging out with Rick's cousins, Jon, Jen, Cheryl and Denise...flip flop flipping. Whoever can kick of their flip flop and make it go the furthest wins. We thought this game was fun. A little too fun. It was also fun to play the game using human targets. Gwen loved retrieving all the flip flops.

I risked injury for some of these photos

Gwen loved being out on the lawn too. Have I ever mentioned how much I love her? Yes? Well then, have I mentioned how darn cute she is?

More Birch Bay posts to come soon!