Bear Lake Day 1

We love seeing the cousins at Bear Lake.

Bear Lake has become one of our best family traditions. Each year we rent a house with all the cousins and spend a few days on the beach. Everyone was really excited for our trip this year! This year we arrived on Sunday after attending Church. It was great because we woke up early for breakfast and headed out to the lake.

All the little girls want to hang out with Randy.

We decided to try a different beach this year, so we caravaned over to East Beach. Since we are in the midst of the worst drought in Utah's history, the lake level is really low. This meant we had to drive the cars far out on the sand to reach the beach. We knew we might get in a little trouble due to the sandbars, but we had a lot of people to help push the vans. 

Dad went first, and he didn't have any trouble getting down to the water's edge. Grandpa got a little stuck, but we pushed him out. Stephanie had no problems, because she has a big four wheel drive. And Jonny got really stuck. His van has the lowest clearance, and it got high-centered right on a big soft sandbar. We spent almost an hour digging it out, but it was fun to work together, and no one was really grumpy or upset. After that mishap, Melanie left her van far up the sand so we didn't have to dig again!

Mom and Melanie had to teach the kids how to play tetherball.
Mom enjoyed beating her little sister!

Everyone was seriously great diggers under the car.

It took us a long time to move this van.

The beach was great. It was a perfect day with warm water, cool temperatures, and lots of swimming and kayaks. As always, some of the kids dug in the sand, but mostly we just enjoyed being together. Games of badminton and volleyball broke out. Naps were taken. Overall, we really enjoyed East Beach, and we'll certainly visit again.

Seth's favorite place is Bear Lake.

Mark always helps at the little cousins.

Dax loves lunch on the beach.

All of the dads needed a quick nap. Randy just barely woke up for this picture.

We played volleyball and badminton.

Mom loves hanging out with her mom and sisters. It's the best!

After we got home and showered Mom made tacos for dinner. The kids played a lot of night games, and then we had fudge tasting. Grandpa had brought twelve kinds of fudge, and we had to taste it, guess the flavor, and rate it from 1-5. There was so much fudge that Dax actually threw up a little! We enjoyed most of the flavors, though.

The East Beach was lovely, even in the smoke.

The boys spend all of their time out on the kayaks.

Shakes at a new spot.

The fudge tasting was fun.