Memorable Memorial Day

This year will go down on record as either the 3rd or 4th time in my life that I have not been camping at Whiskeytown Lake for Memorial Day weekend.  As usual the forecast included a bit of rain and a lot of cold, so we reluctantly let go of tradition and instead planned a day trip to the beach.

We loaded up Miss B and my dads RV with the Rickards, our family, my parents, the Hankes crew plus two, and met the Wests and Schwendimans in Avila!

All the kids 12 and over plus Drew rode with my dad and all the younger ones rode with us.

After a movie and several attempts at naps, Brynne ended up playing with the CamWow app on my phone to pass the time until we finally arrived

(Kristie and I crashed a few of her pics)

We were totally prepared for cooler windy weather, but were roasting by the time we set up our little camp for the day!

We ran into a few technical difficulties setting up the volleyball net but after Jeff found a few large rocks, dug a tunnel all the way to China, and we pounded away with the Schwendi's hammer/bat, we were in business!

It was too much fun playing volleyball after sitting out last year with my broken wrist! We got creative and played with crazy numbers of people, Eric sacrificed his shorts and Brenda sacrificed her saftey pin, "they "made their serves because of the wind while "we" made ours in spite of it, Schwendiman made sure to keep accurate score and heartily encourage the best performances from his teammates, and we picked up a couple of strangers along the way.

We had tons of yummy food and cold drinks

The kids had a blast together

There was lots of digging going on...

Some splashing around in the icy cold water

And lots of naps, relaxing, and just hanging out

When everyone was sufficiently crispy we decided to pack things up and start for home.

 But the day wouldn't have been complete for Jeff without making some kind of wager with Kristie.  Those two totally know how to get under each others skin!  This day was no exception...

On the way out of town, the Hankes introduced us to their tradition of stopping at the Avila Barn.  The roasted corn is pretty fabulous, I hear their pies are awesome, and my family said the ice cream was amazing!

It was a Memorial Day success, in spite of breaking with tradition.  Perhaps we've just started a new one!