Goodbye, Summer 2012

We gave Summer 2012 a nice Goodbye Party at Bear Lake last weekend.  It was our annual vacation with Brian's extended family in our usual spot.  The weather was perfect and we didn't have to fight crowds like we have in past years.  Maybe because we were there the day before school starts for most of Utah.  Hmmm.  I need to pay closer attention to our schedule because I didn't even notice that our Bear Lake trip went into the morning of the first day of school.  The first day!  We came home early.  Bridget would still be complaining about that if it wasn't for HOT LUNCH.  Eating lunch at school yesterday has been the highlight of her life so far, but more about that later.

Front row: Bridget, Abby, Nicolette, McKade, Nate, Janessa, Jake.  Back row: Nicole, Brian, Emil, Colin, Nick, Lynzy, Kyle, Diana, Harold, Denise, Hal, Debbi, Dena, Darin, Kyra, Brighton, and Jed

For now, it's our trip to Bear Lake!  Garden City!  Home of half a dozen places that all claim to have FAMOUS BEAR LAKE RASPBERRY SHAKES.  We got ours from the Big Bear Pizza or Whatever That Place is Called.  I had three.  One every day.  No regrets.  Except I regret it because my tummy was mad, but otherwise no regrets.  The first thing we did was herd everyone down to an open spot for a family picture.  Now my mind is blank on what happened next.  Did we eat?  Did Bridget and Brian swim while I kept the babies at the condo?  That's a safe bet - it seems like I was in the condo with them a lot.  I know I thought they were fine playing in a cupboard with frying pans and sauce pans when a big casserole dish shattered on the tile floor.  BAH.  I had to put shoes on the boys as fast as I could, then sweep and get on my hands and knees looking for little shards of glass for the next 30 minutes.  Both Emil and Colin could get out of their play pens and they could open the doors, or I would have tried to contain them since I was by myself.

Grandma and Grandpa planned some fun games to play on Sunday.  It's hard to find something that big kids and very little kids can do together.  Grandma got it right, though.  Popping balloons with your bum, eating an Oreo off your face without using your hands, freeze tag, and a pinata.  Denise unveiled the pinata and asked where she could hide it, as if it was perfectly normal for her to have a pinata at Bear Lake.  Ha!  That struck me funny. :)

It took a lot of swings at the pinata to break it.  The first time it fell, only one of the star points came off and no candy fell out.

Nate's reaction is my favorite thing that happened the whole trip.  "Dammit!  They broke it!" 

Uncle Brian finally broke the pinata open and the kids could get their candy.

Colin settled down on the grass with a precious chocolate milk from Gossner's in Logan.

Yes!  Emil was DISTRAUGHT.  We took too long getting him a chocolate milk too.  Life is super unfair.  My favorite picture of all time. :)

The next day Brian and I took all the kids to the swimming pool.  Nothing gets my blood pressure up quite like trying to keep track of three children in a public place where there is water.  At one point I had to run Bridget to the bathroom (run) and I took Colin with us.  Brian was left in the swimming pool wondering if he had a Beautiful Mind and we didn't exist since he didn't see us leave and I didn't tell him where we were going.  The boys tired of the swimming pool long before Bridget, so Brian took them back to the condo and I stayed with Bridget and taught her how to dive and do flips in the water.  That was my actual favorite moment of our trip.  It made me realize how seldom she and I are together and having fun, just the two of us.

Brian and Bridget went to the lake with everyone while I stayed at the condo and the boys napped.  So glad I had a good book to read!  And Words with Friends, of course.  Emil woke up after only an hour, but Colin hadn't slept the night before, so he needed longer.  Emil and I watched Megamind and waited.  Then we joined everyone at the lake for the last hour they were there.

Emil likes to throw rocks.  Just like his Grandpa Harold. :)

So, there you have it.  We had dinner with everyone, then we had to hightail it back home.  Jake rode with us and listened to Bridget say more words than he has heard her say in her entire life.  Poor man.  Colin watched the movies like a good boy.  Emil figured out that he can throw his binky up to the front seat and make us look for it.  Sigh.  

Fond farewell, summer 2012!