Bear Lake, UT

The first annual family reunion was held last week. Even our grandma, who hasn't camped in over 25 years went. All of Jeff's siblings attended except two and that is still a lot of people. We snuck around the 1-15 construction zone and opted for a route that included a heavily guarded Evanston... can't let those illegal aerial fireworks into Utah. The result was only 2 1/2 hours instead of 3-4 hours. We set up our great new tent and our kids danced inside for joy.

Some highlights included:

• Laying on the ground at midnight finding satellites with our kids.
• Dutch oven desserts. Apple crisp with a full jar of caramel? Who thought of that?
• The perfectly laid campfire (by Jeff)
• The teenage girls who went to sleep instead of talking until 3am. They even sang the Princess Pat with me-- talk about letting your cool hair down.
• The Snipe Hunt hosted by my cool nephew Ethan. Caitlyn was scared of snipes the rest of the trip and my boys were seriously questioning the travel brochure and map because the history of Bear Lake was not right-- the way that Ethan told it.... Ha.
• Green Fire courtesy of our resident Chemist
• Showers that gave Jeff the 2x Boost in energy
• Bloomington Lake, the hike, the lake, the glacier, the granite and mostly the rope swing and my crazy soaked husband who whooped and hollered like a crazy person after finally giving in to his need to risk life and limb--- well comfort for sure.
• Minnetonka Caves. Stalagmites. stalagtites and bats. Yes, two tiny bats and 888 stairs. I am totally counting that as a workout. They look excited, no? Well, they don't know that the bats are tiny yet.
• La Beau's Shakes even though I opted not to have raspberry. I know its a travesty in Bear Lake, but Cait and I mangaged to muscle through our PB Cup Shake anyway.
• Bear Lake. I have never seen such blues mingled together. Gorgeous.

Of course there were a few lowlights:

• Cooking sloppy joes from scratch --12 batches instead of just using Manwich like my wise SIL suggested. It did taste better, but really everything tastes good camping. Despite swearing that I could NOT eat the stuff after smelling it for two days, I ate one anyway. Maybe the smoke cleared my senses.
• COLD... the nights, mornings, and the lake. Lucky for us our kids froze before we did, so we didn't look like party poopers.
• COLD yes, more of it, shivering in the night in my sleeping bag that is rated down to 20 degrees F. I found myself sometime in the night wondering if there was some secret instruction manual I should have read.
• Bathrooms-- backed up and overflowing... I imagine that was the quickest septic tank fix in the history of the park.
• Our cave tour guide.....dud.