Family Reunion and Ava's Preschool Graduation

On the morning of Wednesday, August 12th Ava, Dylan and I headed out with my parents to the Lewis and Clark Recreation Resort in South Dakota for our Family Reunion. Simon unfortunately missed out on the fun as he had to stay home to time two races this past weekend. Fortunately both the races went really well and he had some great help from his friends Nic and Steve, but we sure missed him on our vacation. There was SO much to do at the Lewis and Clark Resort and we enjoyed staying in the nice cabins, eating lots of food, seeing family and playing outside. Here's just a small a peek at ALL the fun we had.

Here we all are - The Kueck Family minus Andy and Andrea and their four kids. Andrea delivered their 5th child while the rest of us were vacationing. We missed you guys but congratulations on your new baby boy! THANK YOU Kueck sisters for organizing a relaxing, fun filled get-together.

We spent lots of time with adorable baby Riley.

Dylan couldn't get enough of splashing in at the lake and loved digging holes in the sand with the heels of his feet.
Nina and Ava stayed busy clearing the beach of all the rocks.

Grampy was like a little kid playing with the boys in the water and of course the boys loved playing water fights with Grampy (Uncle Billy). Look who's ready to squirt her Grampy with her water gun.
We did lots of socializing and catching up...

... and lots of eating...
... and of course more socializing while the kids stayed busy digging holes in the big sand boxes/volleyball courts (see in the background).
Here are all the kids getting ready to go fishing. Ava caught two fish, but Ava will tell you that Grampy caught the two fish and that she got to reel them in.
The pool was a nice change from the lake - not so much sand in the suits.

We had lots of pool time and thanks to Ava being able to watch and look up to her older cousin Nina and her beautiful swimming skills, Ava has now become quite the little fish herself.

Of course there was lots more sand time.

Look at these cute little Kayakers being pulled through the grass. Good thing their too young to know that Kayaks are more fun in the water. We were finally able to rent a party boat and a speed boat for the day and even thought it looks cold, it really wasn't that bad. We found some calmer water/weather on the other side of the lake and I was able to go water skiing so I was very excited about that. All the kids went tubing and drove the boats so it was a fun day.

Ava went tubing too with no hesitation. She had a blast.

And after a wonderful vacation the kids crashed on the long ride home back to Denver.We arrived home late on Sunday and were very excited to see Simon. We played outside with dad for a little while to stretch the kids legs and then headed in for bath and bed to get ready for school/daycare on Monday.

On Monday night Ava had her graduation party. I can't believe she's going to be starting preschool. We had a little BBQ at the school and the kids got their little diplomas, cake and had their faces painted. Ava loves getting her face painted so that was a fun treat.Many of Ava's buddies will be heading to new schools soon but we're excited that Ava and most of her good friends will be going to the same ECE program.