In August the entire Groves family meet up on Orcas Island to celebrate Mom and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary. With family living up in Bellingham and down in Bend with several people in between it is very difficult to get all 16 of us together. In fact, I think the last time we were all together was at Tim and Kelley's wedding in July of 2008 - before Benjamin and Avery were even born. We typically see each other during the year just not all together so these 4 days on Orcas were pretty special.
The Ferry Ride:
Once we arrived at The Smuggler's Villa Resort, Benjamin was clearly hungry from the long journey.
One benefit to having much older cousins is they can use you as weight to do a few bench presses.
The balancing rope
We each had our own house/cabin and our back doors all opened up to adjoining decks. We spent most of our time out on the deck talking, watching the sunsets, reading and family dinners all together.
Drew was Marty's right hand man while flying his drone.
Unfortunately, the first morning, Drew, Marty and Tim went very early to get some beauty shots with the drone. On the last time up he decided to go by a big tree, Marty misjudged the distance and the helicopter ran smack into a huge tree. It was lodge up there about 30 feet up. We spent many hours getting a hold of a guy who could come with a ladder and help us get it down.
Assessing the damage.... it was A LOT!!
Benjamin wrestling with Paul and Avery.
We all took turns cooking dinners and nightly we would carry all of our chairs down to the grassy area for talking, sipping drinks and game playing.
Bubble blowing contest
Mummy wrapping contest
Unicorn - ding dong stacking
Fred, the science teaching took Josie and Benjamin down to the water to explore during low tide.
Taking a closer look at all of their sea finds.
Avery and Benjamin spent hours in the sand/dirt hill.
And always ended up with him looking like this.
The Wiley boys decided to jump off the dock.
The water was VERY cold.
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