Bear Lake Day 4

We played a lot of games on this rainy day!

It is so cold today! Not only is the temperature in the mid 40s, there has been a slowly, steady drizzle of rain all day. We hung around most of the morning not doing much. The kids made paper airplanes out of a kit Stephanie had, and the found an old Milles Bornes game they had fun with.

Grandma also rolled out a huge piece of paper for coloring, which is Seth's favorite thing to do.

Aunt Stephanie always plans fun things for the kids to do!

Mark tried to see how far his plane would go. 

Not sure how well it flew, but it was decorated well!

Finally, after lunch we decided to go for a ride. We drove up toward Afton, which is about an hour away to see the new temple in Star Valley. The canyon is so beautiful as you turn north out of Montpelier. Mark spotted a moose right away. Later we saw several deer, including a tiny baby that was nursing from its mother. We also saw sandhill cranes and great blue herons.

It rained and rained! 

Our boys are good adventurers no matter the weather.  

We saw another moose!  

This sandhill crane was all fluffed up for the rain.

Can you spot the Great Blue Heron? How about when you are driving by at 65? That's what Randy did! 

Here he is flying away from us! 

We spotted this baby deer nursing. 

The mom told the baby to hide, which it did for awhile, and the mom tried to walk away to distract us.
They figured out that we were just going to stay in our car, so the baby came back out. 

The baby was so small!

We made it to the temple and took pictures for our temple books. We were surprised how tiny the Star Valley Temple is! It's base seems very small. We stopped at Red Baron Drive-In for shakes and ice cream, which was really delicious. Then we headed back home.

This temple isn't any bigger than a church. It's tiny.

Ice cream is delicious even in the rain!

On the way, we couldn't resist a six mile drive out to a reservoir called Cottonwood Reservoir, which is a turnoff in the tiny town of Smoot. The road was wet and rocky, and more than a little sketchy in some places. We even came to one place where the rushing river had covered the road, but someone had come along and built a nice dike, so the water had turned back into its course. The drive was more than lovely, though a little nerve-wracking, and there was nobody else on the road. Finally, we made it to the reservoir and took a few pictures. Then we turned around and came back to St. Charles, where our house is.

The river had obviously flooded the road here and someone built up this nice bank to keep it back,

The road was pretty sketchy, but Randy is a great driver.

The area was beautiful, especially the reservoir. We decided we would definitely come back and camp here. 

Mom was in charge of dinner again. She made pasta, meatballs, and garlic bread. She even made a spaghetti squash for Dad. After dinner was a lot of work. One of the crumby things we've been dealing with is a boil order here in St. Charles. On the day we arrived there was a note from the city on the door that said the high water had contaminated the drinking water. We have the cooler with us, so this seems like no big deal, but washing dishes is a nightmare! We have to boil several gallons of water just for washing, more for rinsing, and some for cooking, too. It's been pretty inconvenient. Still, despite the weather and the water, we've had a good time being together.

The last night we sat together to tell stories. This tradition began a few years ago when we started coming to Bear Lake. Everyone tells a story. Grandma usually kicks the night off, and even the smallest kids will share a fun story. We mostly laugh and laugh at all the silly memories that we have from vacations and growing up, and it's so fun to see what the grandkids are going to share. Everyone went to bed happy!

Grandma is a great storyteller. 

I love this picture of my sister laughing at the stories. It's a fun tradition.