Bear Lake

The first week of August we spent several days at Bear Lake with my family. We mapquested the drive and saw that it would take roughly 3 hours to get there (including the 1 planned stop). We got about an hour outside of Sandy and blew a tire on the trailer. No worries though, Jeremy brought 2 spares. The highway patrolman stopped and watched us work and then saw to it that we got to the gas station safely (to top off the air). 12 miles later the other trailer tire blew. Huh. No worries again since we have one more spare. Wait a sec, the first tire (from 12 miles ago) was speeshing air. As it turns out, any store in which to buy trailer tires closes at 6:00 (and it was 5:45). We left the trailer on the side of the road with concerned children, "what if somebody takes our trailer?" We assured them that if someone had two spare trailer tires and was willing to stop and replace the tires that surely they needed the trailer worse than we did.

Jeremy's brother (and our current hero), Brad, went to our house, pulled the tires off of our little utility trailer and met us at the mouth of Parleys Canyon with those and one more that he grabbed from his mom, along with his mom's jack. With the two new tires we drove smoothly to the campground and arrived 7 hours after we left our house.
It was a crazy start, but we truly had the most fabulous welcome from all of my siblings! And, they helped us get things ready for the night so we were set up in a snap.

The next day was windy, but we enjoyed riding on the tubes and playing in the lake. My bros and the kids built some pretty neat sand castles and we enjoyed chatting and playing.

It is no small feat to get a group this size together for a picture. Of course everyone their own camera so we have probably 100 or so pictures from this morning event. Surely there'll be one where everyone looks good.
One of the highlights of the summer is that our kids got to play with all of their cousins on both sides. The kids rode scooters, collected shells, colored pictures, roasted smores, and played in the dirt.

The 40 degree weather didn't deter us terribly. My sister has a big enclosed trailer so on the coldest day much of the group played games there while the kids did crafts in our trailer, and others of the group sat around the fire drinking hot chocolate. I think it would've been nice to play in the water a bit more, but I can pretty much visit no matter where my camp chair is placed.
It was a fun trip. All of my siblings were there, something we haven't enjoyed for 3 years since we live in different areas of the country, and it was very enjoyable. I felt like we could've spent several more days together. I'm grateful for good times.