3rd Annual Needles River Trip

Are you sick of seeing pictures of the kids in the water? Between the water park, the beach, day trips to the river and swim lessons, I feel like the kids (and I to only a slightly lesser degree) have LIVED in our bathing suits this summer. And it's not quite over yet.

Last week, we took our now annual trip overnight to the Needles/Topock area of the river. This year we opted out of staying in Laughlin, which meant Kuma got to come along too since we found a pet friendly hotel in town. We were joined this year by Grand Bob and Grannie Annie, the Miller family and Tara (Cruz couldn't come because he is in a cast yet AGAIN).

Here is a picture of all my babies, in the car and excited for the trip:



With a bigger group going, we had two boats (ours and Grand Bob's). Joe had an idea of how to divide everyone up in the boats but I don't think he thought through how it would look to have two grown men in a boat with the dogs and no one else. Not that there is anything wrong with that (classic Seinfeld):

 

Some snapshots of daycamping the first day with the top of the gorge as our backdrop:

 





Cool little sandcastle the kids all built:

 

After getting off the water, we cleaned up, ate dinner and then the kids swam in the hotel pool. This is what happens when Jadyn a) doesn't get enough sleep and b) goes to bed with wet hair. It isn't pretty (and yes, Kuma is exhausted as well):

 

The next day we daycamped at a new beach. Kuma kept swimming out to try and catch ducks (surprise, surprise, he never did) and the kids had fun making a riverway across the sandbar:

 



Once we got back on the boat, Jadyn took a turn at driving. She was a little nervous, even on Grand Bob's lap:

 

 She was much happier to just be a passenger:

 

 The kids also got to try their hand at tubing again, this year with a little more success:

 



 On the way back in, Jake started to doze off but he caught me trying to take his picture. Oops!:



So yes, two full days on the water is fun but also quite exhausting. And as I mentioned,  we are not done with the water just yet. Our annual mini-vacation down to the beach is next week (later in the summer than usual). We are packing it in literally RIGHT before the kids and I head back to school.