Bear Lake 2011 TAKE TWO

We were lucky enough to take a second family trip to Bear Lake this summer in July.  This time we went with my mom, and a bunch of my sister Kim's kids--Becca, Hannah, Skyler, and James.  Mike brought another one of my sister's kids, Brayden, up with him on day 2.  My aunt Star and her daughter Brittany came up on day 2 also, and my sister Kim and her estranged husband, Troy, came up on day 3.  (Yeah...don't ask.)  We were there for 5 days total.

We were also lucky enough to have both the kids sleep most of the way there.  :)

Melia had a lot of fun playing on the beach.  (Again with that tongue sticking out...)

 

And she especially had fun when Grandma would play with her.

Spencer had an absolute blast playing with his cousins.  I was surprised how well he played with Skyler, who is 16.  Skyler is so much fun for the kids though--a total child at heart.  :)  He'll make a great dad someday!

 

I think the kids had the most fun playing "Harry Potter."  They kept running around with sticks they found at the lake and pretending they were their wands.  They'd should spells at eachother and had to react to them accordingly.  I did have to "ban" them from using any "unforgivable curses."  I know it's all make believe, but I felt like they were swearing or something when they'd say them!  Plus Melia was repeating all the "spells" and while a 1 year old shouting, "Expelliarmus" or "Stupefy" is cute, I just didn't feel the same about hearing her try to yell, "Avada Kedavra."  

Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of them playing with their wands.  Some of their wands were pretty awesome looking though!

We were also able to celebrate Spencer's birthday while we were up there.  His big day was a couple of days after the trip but he was leaving on another family vacation with his mom's side the day after we took him home, so we weren't going to get to see him for about a week.

I cannot believe I have a TEN YEAR OLD!  Isn't that CRAZY?!  It totally trips me out.  I remember being ten and feeling so old.  I remember thinking I was SOO OLD when I was in the 5th grade and now I am A PARENT to a FIFTH GRADER!  I've been in this kiddo's life since he was 4--so now that's a significant majority of his life.  He really is growing up so fast!

Look at that handsome face of a BIG 10 YEAR OLD!

Because it was Pioneer Day Weekend, they had a few festivities going on up at the lake including a sidewalk chalk contest.  Here are Britt, Skyler, Melia, Becca and Hannah all participating in the sidewalk chalk contest.

Melia was pretty darn cute drawing on the sidewalk.

Becca did a huge "I LOVE JUSTIN BIEBER" mural.  She colored the entire sidewalk square!  (Now that is some serious Bieber fever!)

 Here's Hannah coloring her giant flower.

Here's Britt's finished product.

 

Here's Melia's finished product.  She's a definite artist in the making.  Lol.

Melia is so funny whens she colors because sometimes she'll do it standing up and just bend all the way over with her little bum in the air and draw.

Spencer did a giant American flag for Pioneer Day.  Unfortunately all the pictures I got of it were too washed out by the sun so you couldn't see it.

 Here's Mike helping him color some of his stripes.  (And me and my belly are watching.)

And HERE is Skyler's finished product.  I think he should've won.  I thought it was so cool!  None of us knew he was such an artist.  He said he didn't really know either.  :)

 A new thing up at Ideal Beach this year are these climbing trees (like a rock wall, except they're palm trees).  They look super fun but I (obviously) was in no condition to participate.  Skyler was the fastest, and almost beat their record holder.  He looks like a natural.

Here's James in his hot pink swimming suit from 1985.  :) 

Spencer did a really great job.  He insisted on climbing the hardest of the trees and I wasn't sure if he'd make it.

Even though it took him a long time, he just kept climbing.

And finally made it all the way to the top!

Mike did it too!

And was definitely the best at repelling down. 

Unfortunately when Mike repelled down, he went so far down to the ground that he broke the whole thing.  Becca had insisted on going last and Mike was 2nd to last.  She was so upset when it broke because it was the hardest tree and that's the one she wanted to go on.  Luckily the employee got it fixed so she could still do it.

 

Melia had fun feeding the birds with Grandma.

I love this picture of the 3 girls on the swings.  Becca, Melia, and Hannah.

Melia LOVES swings, and slides more than probably ANYTHING else she could do in a day.

 When we were up at the lake in June the lake was awfully high and news reports were saying "Bear Lake is almost full."  Well in July they were saying it WAS FULL.  The water came all the way up to the big tree on the playground.  The water hasn't been this high since I was a very very small child, and even then I rarely remember it being that high.  It was SO nice to have the lake/beach be so close.  It felt like we could go to the beach and then go back to the condo and eat lunch and then maybe go back to the beach.  Whereas other years I felt we had to plan a big time to go to the beach because it was such a trek to get down there, especially lugging all your beach gear.  I hope the water level can stay up high like that.