As mentioned in previous posts, I'm in Utah and Idaho to attend my wife's family reunion. The reunion was held in beautiful Bear Lake, Idaho. The lake itself (as you can see on the map, above) actually crosses both Utah and Idaho. We stayed at a wonderful cabin on the Idaho side. The views were stunning. Here's a picture of my sister-in-law, running on the roads just outside the cabin. You can get a feel for the incredible views:
On our first full day at Bear Lake, we spent almost the entire day at the lake. This was a tradition of my wife's family and I'm glad the weather held for us to enjoy the sunshine. The grandkids have been plotting for months on ways to win a water fight with their grandfather. You have to understand that he's pretty good...and you need to be willing to sacrifice any dry clothing to engage with him. The kids tried a few strategies, but Grandpa brought a pretty powerful weapon on the trip:
At one point, my brother-in-law rented a stand-up paddle board. The boys decided to turn it into a sort of battleship, from which they would launch attacks against Grandpa. It was so awesome to watch these cousins work together and come up with these intricate plans. I loved every minute of it:
That's G-Man as the gunner on the front of the battleship
Little L loved the lake...especially when she was tall enough to walk pretty far out into the water:
The paddle board was a big hit, as just about everyone took the opportunity to try it out. I was amazed at how much balance and core strength you need to stay on that thing:
Even Grandpa set out on an adventure...
I took G-Man out for a spin. After falling off while standing, I treated it more like a canoe and we had a blast:
Here's the scene on the beach, from the water. We had the entire area to ourselves and made the most of it:
Everyone seemed to love it. Even the newest addition to the clan enjoyed eating some sand at the beach. Here he is with his "dirt beard":
The cousins spent a great deal of time building a giant sand castle. They found some "clay" deposits in the water and developed a system for retrieving clay to strengthen the walls of the castle:
Eventually, it was time to head back to the cabin. We packed up wet kids and drove over the sand dunes (barely):
That evening, we discovered that when you spend six hours in the sun, some places on your body may NOT have been entirely covered by sun screen. I can barely feel the tops of my feet ; ) This little guy enjoyed the sun - can you tell which part of his face didn't get sunscreen? ; )
Before the sunburns got too bad, we had an awesome game of Minute To Win It. There was no shortage of fun and laughter as we all competed in crazy games. If you've never heard of the game, look it up on the internet - it's a great family activity, with unpredictable results.
The first game was trying to pull every tissue from a Kleenex box as fast as you can. We handed that to the little ones, including one of my nieces that has a disability. They had a blast:
Next up? My wife and her brother, attempting to knock over some water bottles...using golf balls that are attached to panty hose - stretched over their heads ; )
I took my turn - trying to knock six golf balls out of an empty Kleenex box that was attached to the back of my belt. Talk about exhausting...
We also attached a box of Tic Tacs to the end of a tongue depressor...and had little kids grab the depressor with their teeth and shake their heads like a mad dog ; )
We finished the evening with a contest that everyone could participate in. We placed chocolate chip cookies on everyone's forehead. You had to get the cookie from your forehead to your mouth just by using your face. I'm happy to report that my wife came in first and I came in second. It gave me a chance to film others' attempts:
The best part was that we were all working so hard that we melted some of the chocolate chips, as they slid down our faces. You can see exactly how hard my sister-in-law worked on this one:
That's it for now...more Bear Lake adventures in the next post!
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