50 is OK

 My brother, sister and I hatched a plan to whisk my parents away to Beaver's Bend, OK to celebrate their 50th anniversary, at the end of May!  We planned this for over a year!  Everyone was so excited to be a part of this and to truly celebrate F I F T Y years of marriage for my parents!!!

We headed up a day early and stayed at a cute little motel with a pool.  Our kids were in heaven from the get-go.

After everyone converged on our amazing cabin called Turning Leaf, we began exploring Beaver's Bend.  It has great hiking trails!

I could have hiked for a week and not gotten tired of the scenery.  

Here's Nikolai giving a knife demonstration...he is ALL about knives and how to sharpen them!

This was our first vacation as a family since all of us left home!

I tried fishing...but figured out after buying a license the only kind of fishing that caught anything here was fly fishing. Now I know for next time!

One day, we decided to do a little canoe trip with whoever wanted to go.

 Here's how we split up in boats.

Everything was hunky dorey....until we came upon a drop off.  We are all pretty terrified!  Ok, not my dad and not Shawn but yes to everyone else.  We didn't realize they had a camera set up at this exact location to catch the look of sheer panic on our faces as we entered this waterfall!

We didn't tip but it was SCARY!

This picture cracks me up and is opposite of their usual dispositions.  I didn't buy the picture of my sister and brother's experience...but there's was the worst.  They definitely crashed and lost stuff to water and thought Grayson was going to go for a swim.  They both had bruises on their legs, but we did save all their belongings.....not sure if everything survived the waterlogging though.  

On our last night there, we had a special dinner and cupcakes with toppers the kids decorated and ended by playing the Not-So-Newlywed Game with my parents.  It was quite hilarious!

After going through their wedding album, my mom pulled out her wedding dress and veil which had never been out of the box(!) and let Elle try it on.  My mom was absolutely tiny when she got married!!!!

It was a wonderful trip and hopefully they know how much we appreciate them sticky together through all those difficult times!  What an example!