Fun at Bear Lake

We were supposed to go to Bear Lake over Memorial Day weekend, but things didn't work out. The kids were really disappointed, so we've been promising them that we would go sometime this summer. My brother called a few weeks ago to get my address to send us an invitation for my nephews birthday party that weekend even though we probably wouldn't be able to come (they live in Bear Lake). We realized that we for once didn't have anything going that weekend, so at the last minute we decided to go on up. My parents wanted to go but my dad wasn't going to be able to and since it would be a waste to have my mom drive up separately when we had room, we picked her up and took her with us. The kids thought that was great!

We stayed at the "Hirschi Hideout" (the cabin my grandpa and uncles built on the property where my mom grew up). For the first night we were actually there all by ourselves which NEVER happens. There's always someone at the hideout. The second night my cousin Galen and his family were there. It was fun to see them since we don't get to see them very often. We saw them over Christmas break last year and it was the first I'd seen them in like 15 years. So it was funny to be able to see them twice within one year.

We locked the keys in the car the morning after we arrived. And for once it wasn't my fault!!! (I've locked the keys in the car about 12 times since Matthew and I have been married. Three of those times, children were in the car - but too young to do anything about it. I don't think Matthew has once.) Anyway, this time it was actually September who did it. She was using the car to recharge her ipod. :) We tried to pry open the doors so we could get something in it to try to pull the lock. Nothing. We tried to call the local police station to see if they'd do anything, but no. They did give us a few names to local locksmiths. Nobody answered our phone calls. I called my brother to see if he had any connections with anyone in the area. He didn't. But he did think that my cousin, Brian, had a slim-jim. He called me back a couple minutes later and as it turned out, he didn't just have ONE slim-jim, he had multiple slim-jims. Hmmmmmm. ;) He was SOOOO nice and not only drove all the way out to help us, but stayed for like an hour to help do it. The slim-jims weren't working, so we were trying all sorts of random objects, and in the meantime ruining the doorjams of the car. We were trying on both sides of the car, but it was ultimately Brian that got it open. Our hero!! He was planning on being at my nephews party (after all, it was at the beach where his watercraft rental place is at) and he kept saying that we could all just ride back with him, but all of our beach stuff and party gifts were IN the locked car. But once we finally got it open, we grabbed our stuff and took off......only to realize once we got there that we had left the food that we were supposed to bring for the birthday picnic at home. Wow, it was certainly our day! There was plenty of food though and we all had a lot of fun. Except for Matthew who had had enough of the sun after the first couple hours. He had forgotten a hat......a VERY important item for a bald person at the beach. He borrowed one of my uncles hats that was just sitting around at the cabin. He looked ridiculous, but cute....like a middle-aged man! Even he had fun though. Brian let us use one of his boats and jet skis for the party. Matthew took the girls out on the jet ski. September loved it, but Kya did not. I ended up going out on the boat and had Kya come with me for that. She liked that a lot more. The birthday party was fun. Zenick was a little tired and didn't get to enjoy his birthday as much as I'm sure his parents hoped he would. But he's one, what do you expect? Ginger did an awesome job making his cake (it was so cool!) and he had a fun time destroying it. They had also buried the goody-bags in the sand so the kids could go treasure hunting. The kids weren't quite getting it and most of them had to be helped, but all of the loot was eventually found. All in all, it was a very fun day at the beach. I LOVE Bear Lake.

The amazing birthday cake creation. Isn't it amazing what great lengths we go to just for a kid to tear into it and destroy it? ;)

My cute Grandpa Hirschi! He'll be 96 in October and even though his health has gone downhill quite a bit in the past few years, he's still going pretty strong for his age. They just redid the tile in the bathroom at his house and he was right there alongside helping. They had to tell him to go sit down. Mountain Dew is what keeps this man alive. He drinks probably a 6-pack a day! It's the secret to his longevity. :)

My brother, Chuck.....aka Chuckie!

Ahhhh....it felt so nice to just prop my feet up and relax. I love boating!

This is my cousin's son drinking the lake water. Gross....but hilarious!! (Because it wasn't my child.)

Digging for treasures

My cute niece, Zailey. She is the funniest, tiny little thing. She's a miniature adult.

Check out Peyton's booty!! She only had a regular diaper on and after playing in the lake for a while, her diaper had um, expanded. You couldn't really see the diaper so it just looked like she had a very full-figured booty. Hmmmmm.....

This was Peyton's first time at the beach. She enjoyed the water.....and eating the sand and rocks!

This was another one of the funnest parts of the trip. When we were up there over Christmas break, Chuck revived our old TI99. Does anybody remember that computer game system??? My dad actually was a salesperson for Texas Instruments for a while so we were HOOKED UP! Ha ha. We had tons of games for it and we absolutely LOVED this machine as kids. It's funny to play it now and see how archaic everything seems. It's still a lot of fun though.

The kids playing in the train that my Uncle Grant built a few years ago. This is a kid favorite every summer. He hooks it up to a 4-wheeler and pulls the kids around. There were no 4-wheelers this trip to hook it up to, so the kids got creative and used man-power to pull each other around.

Chuck & Ginger have a couple cabins that they own and rent out, along with being in charge of the Property Management for all of Brian's cabins as well. We've been wanting to build a cabin of our own somewhere someday, and after this weekend we have decided that we definitely want to do one up in Bear Lake eventually. We'd be able to rent it out throughout the year around the times when we want to use it (paying the mortgage with what we make from the renters) and have Chuck & Ginger as the property managers. We wanted to get going on it as soon as possible, but Chuck talked us into waiting for the market to come down a little bit up there to make it a little bit more affordable. So we hope to either buy a lot and start building next Spring, or buy an existing one in the Spring. The whole family is very excited. We LOVE Bear Lake!

This is the view from one of the cabins. Beautiful doesn't even begin to describe it!

Apparently it was a very exhausting trip! When you play hard, you crash hard!