Bear Lake Day 1

Grandpa Daniels rented out a house at Bear Lake this year and invited everyone to come stay for 3 nights. This sounded like just the right adventure for us, and it turned out to be perfect.

Our first stop on the way to Bear Lake was the American West Heritage Center in Cache Valley. We had heard about this pioneer site, but we'd never made it to the property. It was really fun! We got to milk a cow, gather chicken eggs, ride the train, and pan for gold. We even threw axes at a target, which we were really bad at. The boys enjoyed it, though. They also rode horses, watched the blacksmith, and played with pioneer toys all before lunch.

Our boys loved seeing the farm animals.

Panning for gold was lots of fun!

Riding the train!

Randy is really good at selfies now.

I loved that they made them wear helmets. 

Randy was the only one with any force in his throw.

Seth was surprisingly good at this game.

Dax really liked this pioneer game.

We stopped at our favorite restaurant in Logan for lunch, which is called Angie's and then picked up the paddleboards that we got free for helping someone with our blog. Sadly, we never actually got the paddleboards in the water. The boys also wanted to stop and take pictures at the temple in Logan before we headed up the canyon to Bear Lake.

The Logan Temple had beautiful flowers!

We actually stopped at two temples. Brigham City was also needed in Seth's temple book.

Mmmm....we love Angie's in Logan. The scone was delicious.

Mom and Dad wanted to do a hike in the canyon, and we couldn't decide between Limber Pine Trail and Tony Grove Trail. We finally chose Limber Pine because it was right on the road. The trail was really nice, and our boys are awesome hikers. They were super-excited that you could see Bear Lake from the trail, too.

These two have become such great hikers!

Dax found a fun tree seat!

The Limber Pine Trail leads to this huge tree!

I love hiking with Mark. He always has such a great attitude!

Next we went to the rental house, which was on the northeast side of the lake in Idaho. None of us had spent time on the north beach of Bear Lake, so it was a new experience. Dad had camped on the south shore, and it is a muddy mess compared to the beach in Idaho. And the house we stayed in had private beach access on the north side.

Here was our private beach. The kids just went out the back door. 

The house was called the Three Bears Cottage, and was decorated with a bear theme. It had a fully stocked kitchen, 2 bedrooms inside, one for Tiffany's family and one for Grandma and Grandpa, and a small living room. Outside there was a fully screened porch that ran around three sides of the house. We stayed on the south side, Melanie's family stayed on the northside, and Brittany stayed on a futon on the west side. It wasn't huge, but Mark and Dax had bunkbeds and we set up a cot for Seth. Mom and Dad shared a pull out futon that was really pretty comfortable. There was only a curtain for privacy, but we still felt it was the best spot in the house, because the huge window screens kept the bugs out and let the cool mountain air in. It was almost cold at night, despite it being July, which delighted Dad.

Seth wishes we could live here.

We loved all the Bear decor!

We can't wait to stay here again--that is if Grandpa lets us!

After setting up "camp" we rode back around the lake to get a shake and dinner for the boys at LaBeau's. There was a terrifying moment when an RV blew right through the stop sign in Garden City at about 40 mph just as we were turning, but thanks to Dad's top-notch driving, or maybe luck, we narrowly skittered through the intersection and avoided a collision.

It was fun to spend so much time with family over the three days in Bear Lake, and we did almost everything together but in our seperate vehicles. I'm not sure LaBeau's liked having 20 of us pull up for dinner and shakes at the same time, but we blended right in with the crowd of about 200 other people at the restaurant.

We loved this little restaurant!

After dinner we drove south around the lake so we could see the other side. There isn't much over there, just a few campgrounds and a lot of sagebrush.

Grandma had made a special request that each family take a night and tell a story that they remembered from their childhood. Our boys worked really hard over the weeks before the trip so that they could each tell a story on our night, which was the first night. It was so much fun to tell and hear the stories! Dad told a story about his birth, which he calls The Baby That Ruined Christmas. Mom told a story about a tarantula and its babies that happened when she was a little girl in California. Mark told about all the head injuries he's had and how he's been, stitched, stapled, and glued shut. Dax told a story about his first birthday when he dumped the cake on his head. And Seth told a story with Mom's help about how he hiked to the North and South Windows at Arches all by himself when he was only 1 year old. Our stories sort of set a tone that everyone would tell a story, not just the adults, and we hope this tradition continues, because it was so much fun.