4th of July at Bear Lake

It dawned on me that I'm one Bear Lake trip behind on the blog. And since I recently printed four books from my blogs, and have decided this is the perfect way to document our family history every year, I better get some photos up for posterity's sake.

Day 1.
No snow! No cold! No rain! Wahoo! To celebrate, we let the kids run through the sprinklers while we unpacked and claimed the shed-no-turned-luxury-bedroom.Day 2.
Uncle Jesse breaks out the slip-n-slide. Cole finds the spraying water fun but isn't sure what to think once he accidentally slips down the slip-n-slide. Pearl loved, loved, loved the slip-n-slide. And poor Ruby has her Dad's genes. She doesn't like the cold water so she refused to slide down her own slip-n-slide.Cole and the puppies are inseparable.Jesse brought out the big guns. Do you see his new swimming suit? It makes me laugh every time I see it! It's a John Wayne, with guns and bullets across the butt! Love it!The kids begged us to take them to the beach. So with the water high and our beach almost nada, we decided to go down to Rendezvous Beach. As soon as we got out of the car to a mass of people crammed onto the strip of sand, we quickly realized how grateful we should be for a private beach. The luxury of having the beach to our selves to spread out on, come and go as we please, and do whatever we want without fear of sitting on a strangers' towels, or having people stare at you is definitely worth the less than 5 star hotel accommodations. We tried out our new quick-shade thing and it was thrilling as you can tell from my siblings' expressions. Jeff buried Pearl in the sand. And Cole ate the sand.
We got a typical family picture. My eyes are closed. Pearl is grouchy about the whole idea. Cole is distracted. And Jeff is annoyed at the entire get-up, not to mention the fact that Cole is now covering him in sand and pulling his chest hairs out in the process.
Day 3.
I think it rained last night but now I can't remember! We all enjoyed the 4 wheelers but no one as much as Pearl. Every day she begged Jeff to take her on a ride. She saw deer and wild turkeys. They ride fast and do doughnuts in the parking lots, much to my frowning about. Cole gets pretty jealous that everyone else gets to go on rides. Sometimes I think he can't wait to grow up so he can do everything the rest of us are. To prove he's a big boy, he steals your chair the second you walk away. Then refuses to get out. And he eats licorice, gives smooches, and is quite a funny character. Every once in awhile Ruby forgets that I'm the mean Aunt who doesn't let her just watch movies all day and will give me a hug. She is such a pretty little girl!
Last but not least, I painted the girls' piggy toes and finger nails. It was too hard to choose just one color so we alternated between orange and pink. Even my gross toes got a fresh coat of paint... even if it sort of looked like smooshed peas after a couple of days. And if a weekend of gluttony, beaching, 4 wheeling, and fireworks wasn't enough, we bought a new car (2011 Chevy Cruze)!