Bear Lake #1

We are making two trips to Bear Lake this year. We enjoyed our camping trip with my family last week. We stopped on our way through Logan canyon to walk into some small caves and feel the cold spring water.   My kids love exploring with Grandpa!

Ammon and Peter loved riding on Grandpa's boat, and they even took a calm ride with me on the tomcat.

Talmage enjoyed knee-boarding several times in the chilly Bear Lake water.  He's very good at it!

We had fun hiking through the Paris Ice Caves.  All four of my brave children climbed through the icey, snowy darkness of the caves.

This is the smallest section of the caves that we crawled through. (Well, I'm sure Steve found some other scary cracks to squeeze through.)  Ammon kept his lucky feather with him at all times.

Talmage and Grandpa found another exit from the caves that the rest of us chose not to follow.

We always enjoy hiking up to Bloomington Lake, the glacier pools are so beautiful.

The lake was still mostly covered in ice because we made our trip earlier in the summer this year.  Talmage and Steve were the only two psychos crazy enough to swing out into the frozen water.

At Bear Lake we always have to make time to build a few sandcastles on the beach. You just have to build fast before Peter comes and stomps on your castle.

Some of the nicest time camping is spent sitting and chatting by the campfire.  We  loved our first trip this year to Bear Lake!  My kids loved spending time with their cousins, sleeping in a tent, and following clues to prizes from the Collier Clan Culprit (Grandma).  We are excited to head out to Bear Lake again in a couple weeks with the Rollins Family.

Summertime...an' the livin' is easy

I love summer vacation!

I love having my kids home from school!

I love being able to stay home and relax if we choose,

or going out to play if we want.

We had fun at the drive-in movie theater last night!  We kept the kids out until about 2:30am, but it's alright beause it's summer!   My parents stayed for both movies even though they both had to work the next morning.  I think Steve and Alysha bailed around 1am, wimps!

Ok, most of the drive-in was fun, minus freezing through the second movie and Peter puking all over as we were leaving.

We played a non-competitive game of glow-in-the-dark mini golf at Fat Cats the other day. 

We've enjoyed going to swimming lessons everyday and playing in the outside pool afterward!  Talmage and Leia are excellent swimmers, and Ammon comes home singing "Motor Boat" or "The Hokey Pokey" after every lesson.

Today we made our first trip of the year to Lagoon.
We're excited to make good use of our season passes.

We were chilly at Lagoon-a-beach, so this little Ammon-creature decided to bundle up in the stroller after swimming.

So much fun and we've only been on summer break for
a week and a half!

I love my babies!

Talmage is Ten!

I can't believe my little boy is already ten years old.  He is so big and sweet and amazing!

We enjoyed celebrating his birthday with several of his friends at the Syracuse Family Fun Center.  The boys enjoyed bowling, eating pizza and brownies, and playing arcade games, but their favorite activity was playing laser tag!

We also enjoyed several family birthday celebrations at Grandparents' houses, watching the new Shrek movie, playing volleyball at the church, and eating at restaurants.  We are so grateful to have our fun-loving Talmage!