Bear Lake in Photos

There were literally 1000's of photos taken at Bear Lake. My photographer-siblings (Shawni, Saydi, Josh, Eli, Kristi...) used their awesome talents and cameras to capture some amazing images and spent hours editing and sharing beautiful photos. But if I wait to gather and sort all their images and then combine them with mine, I won't get a post up about Bear Lake for ages (if ever) and/or I'll get analysis paralysis when it comes to deciding which of the many many many great photos I should post. 

So I'm just going to share a little taste of Bear Lake here - my simple, untouched photos from my basic camera and my phone will suffice for now...especially if I combine them with a few readily-available photos I've borrowed from others and links to other people's great posts about various parts of our Bear Lake time.

Oh, what a time we had!

REUNION

Beginning of the reunion - Noah and Kristi going over the schedule, everyone getting excited: (More on reunions in general here)

When cleaning out my parents' old house, we found these huge photo banners and Noah and Kristi decided to hang them up for the reunion - great blast from the past! Noah and Kristi are up there on the deck unfurling the photos as part of the reunion opening ceremony. Then they had us all pair up with someone else, interview that person briefly, then share a few little-known facts about that person as a quick opening activity - really great way to start.

Annual bonfire with the unveiling of our Reunion Playlist (more details here.)


Annual talent show:

Talent show audience:

The first annual Eyrealm Relay - SO FUN - everyone who could walk got placed on teams somewhat balanced by age and ability and each team covered the 12 miles between our cabin and the nearest place where you can get raspberry shakes (the Bear Cave). Everyone ran as far as they could, then another runner on their team hopped out of their team vehicle and took over. Some ran a couple miles, some ran a 100 feet. Everyone was a winner! (For a great full post on the Relay with lots more photos and commentary by my cute mom, click here.)

Eli was looking pretty chipper and fast:

But I passed him. Pretty proud of that.

Oliver ran the whole thing in flip flops - and did a pretty darn good job:

Isaac doing his team proud:

One group coming to the finish line right behind our group:

My relay group:

GRANDCHILDREN GROUPS

The kids have so much fun with their cousins. Each age-group of cousins has developed quite a bond.

Here's Ashton's group - GROUP 1 - Ashton, Max and Elle (how did they get so big, seriously!). 

These three played a lot of pool together, had a great time wakeboarding and waterskiing and canoeing together. And oldest cousin, Max, has a driver's license now and they were so excited that their group could go to the Bear Cave for shakes w/o any adults needing to drive them there. 

After Max had to leave to go back to his summer job in Arizona, Elle and Ashton had so much fun making videos together:

Here's the video they made about the second annual Eyrealm reunion "Fear Factor" - great capturing of a great activity! Eliza, Camden and Ashton were the three finalists this year.

Here's Elle's video of the full reunion from this year 

(Ashton helped a little, but this was mostly Elle - great stuff! 

CLICK ON LINK BELOW PHOTO TO PLAY.)

http://vimeo.com/71126216

Plus they had so much fun with their little cousins - 

here are a some photos I found on my camera that they took: 

Baby Zara, as the newest cousin, was pretty much the star of the reunion. Miss her!

GROUP 2: Isaac's cousins Ana and Gracie are just a month apart from him in age. They are a pretty darn tight little group and this year, now that they're all 12, they got to go on a wonderful motorhome adventure with Grammie and Grandfather (to Lagoon - of all super-exciting wonderful destinations for 12-year-olds!). Here's my mom's great write-up about their motorhome adventure.

GROUP 3: With no sisters, these girls are extra-important to Eliza. They have SO much fun together.

And they're quite amazing with the littler girl cousins - great helpers and mentors:


Here's a whole post about what these girls did on their Grammie Camp this year (learning about ancestors, doing art, mentoring the little girls...).

GROUP 4: The twins and these three cousins, Camden, Charlie and McKay, can't get enough of each other. They move in a little pack the whole time at Bear Lake, playing in the sand, riding on the boat, tubing, and emptying the dishwasher as requested. Often when I'd ask one of the twins to do something, they'd say, "well, we need a little group 4 time right now" and we'd have to negotiate a bit.

Here's Group 4 headed off on their Grammie Camp (to read all about Grammie Camps, click here.)



Here's Group 4 on the beautiful new grass play area my parents' surprised us with this year - "Grandchildren's Green."



OTHER TIDBITS

Dad's new Sailboat was a big hit with everyone (especially him - how he LOVES sailing!). Photos are courtesy of Shawni.

Our family has been going to the Dingle ward (20 minute drive from the cabin) during the summer for like 35 years now. We grew up with the great people there and love seeing them there every summer. And they're so kind to somehow absorb an extra 20+ kids in their nursery and Primary when we're there!

I love seeing these cousins in Sacrament meeting together, older ones helping younger ones behave.

Oh, what food we have at Bear Lake! Eli's curry, Saydi's bread salad, Jonah's burgers, Kristi's fish tacos, tons of awesome salads, mom's brownie cake, everyone's favorite version of chocolate chip cookies... I have to go running in the morning and go for a long swim every afternoon to work off all those calories I just can't say no to!

After the reunion, the crowd thinned out slightly as some people had to go back to work and other obligations but most of us stayed on for days of swimming, water skiing, chatting and reading on the beach while the kids played, going for early morning runs, going for late-afternoon swims, making lots more great food...

The kids play for hours and hours in the sand, building dams and castles:

Ashton told nightly stories to Shawni's daughter Lucy while Shawni was out of town for a few days during our Bear Lake time. He's quite a story-teller. This story was about a little girl who learned to love eating vegetables above all other foods (Lucy's working on eating extra healthy) and he wove in a bunch of ancestor stories. Pretty cute. And pretty gratifying to see that all my story-telling all these years seems to have rubbed off somewhat on this great oldest boy of mine.

Uno was a big part of Bear Lake this year - different groups of kids were playing Uno pretty much constantly!

And to finish, here are some glimpses of the scenery which is always changing and always amazing:

Weddings, Isaac's Ordination, My Birthday and More

I knew this summer would be pretty packed and I was ready for it - the big cross-country road trip and the 5 Retreats involved in that, then family reunion and family time at Bear Lake (which always involves plenty of chaos along with the fun). But I didn't really figure in all these "little" things after Bear Lake. Usually we have some very welcome down time after Bear Lake and before school starts. That down time just hasn't materialized this year!

After saying waves of goodbyes to family at Bear Lake, Saydi, mom and I spent the day Wednesday (July 24th) everything up for the incoming renters at Bear Lake (taking a little break to talk about the sacrifices of our pioneer ancestors since it was Pioneer Day). Wow! There's lots of cleaning and organizing and packing involved when 42 people have lived together in a house for the better part of a month! We got home Wednesday night, had a couple hours on Thursday to get the house re-stocked with food and start the process of unpacking. Then we dived into all this:

Thursday-Friday - My cousin Serenity's wedding dinner was Thursday night, her beautiful wedding ceremony was early Friday morning, and her reception was Friday night in SLC.

It was great to see so many of my cousins and their kids that I haven't seen in ages!

* Photos of the bride and groom with my cute 90 year old grandma plus lots of other stuff in this post are on the card that Ashton took out of my camera and misplaced - hopefully they'll show up sometime. Ashton's been making some great stop-motion videos with a bunch of neighbors and somehow my camera and its card keeps walking off...

Friday - Fun times with all the cousins at the Leonardo museum (since we had to be in SLC for the wedding stuff anyway - figured we'd squeeze that in) - Photos later.

Saturday - Niece Megan's bridal shower followed by going to the temple with her to take our her endowments followed by a fun family dinner at Maddox.

Sunday - Isaac's priesthood ordination. Jared and I took him on a beautiful hike early Sunday morning and Jared conducted a nice little service there on the hill where we read scriptures about the priesthood and talked about how exciting and miraculous it is that God shares part of the very power that created the earth with worthy boys when they turn 12. We brought a picnic breakfast and had a quiet and lovely time.

Then Isaac was sustained in church and had his priesthood ordination right after church. We couldn't find the twins to attend the actual ordination (turns out they were hiding in the bushes) and timing was too tight with everything else going on to have other family members come for the ordination but I think it still felt very special to Isaac. It definitely felt special to me. We now have TWO deacons in the family (and they constitute more than half of the active deacons in the ward).

Sunday evening we had a special dinner for Isaac and joined our neighbors in creating art on the back fence we share - it's now looking a lot more colorful! We ran out of spray paint but we'll finish our artistic creations when we get a chance. (photos later)

Monday - Joined Saydi and kids plus my dear friend Catherine and her kids (she had 5 kids in FOUR years - beat our record!) for an absolutely gorgeous hike at Alta ski resort. The wildflowers were at their peak and it was simply GORGEOUS! Plus it was great to have some time with two of my favorite women (even if our time was interrupted again and again by kids needing bandaids or whining about hiking!)

Tuesday - My birthday. I was so content to just relax and enjoy a quiet day at home for my birthday this year after all the hoopla of the past couple months.  But Jared, Saydi, my parents and the kids really treated me right. The kids and Jared brought me breakfast in bed. I went for a nice run all by myself (I realized I haven't had any alone time for MONTHS and it was sort of starting to drive me crazy!) and listened to a really interesting podcast while I ran. The kids and I had a little read-a-thon together (always a favorite of mine). My parents and Saydi and I went to see the latest art exhibit at the Eccles Art Center (always love seeing people's talent and creativity) then went to my favorite restaurant (Tona) for a delicious early dinner of beautifully presented and delicious food (just what I love). Then things were pretty crazy as the whole neighborhood showed up for a sprinkler party and the sprinklers broke and I had to have Jared walk me through how to fix that while Ashton discovered his new bike had been stolen when he needed to riding it to the final pre-scout-camp meeting. That crisis-on-top-of-crisis moment wasn't my favorite part of the day. But we ended the day with candles in my favorite cookies, ice cream sundaes, a great dance party and a round of "Pass the Pigs" with our family and Saydi and her kids along with one of Isaac's friends who just sort of ended up here and we didn't have time to take him home. But he won our hearts when he was the first to raise his hand and say something nice about me when Jared asked everyone to share their favorite thing about me during the ice cream and cookies. Then Saydi, Jared and I had a great time talking and laughing together after we got all the kids to bed. I love a good talk. Wonderful day full of people and activities I love.

Wednesday - Saydi and I started off the day with a big hike (Maylan's Peak - love conquering that thing!) then did a little shopping before she and her kids had to head out. So fun to have bonus time with my dear sister who treated me so well for my birthday!

Then I spent about 8 hours sitting here working on getting sort of caught up on the 100's of emails that have piled up, the stack of mail that needs to be taken care of, the Power of Moms projects that are most timely (the final manuscript for our new book was due yesterday), and the Joy School people who've patiently waited for answers for way too long. My list is still WAY too long but I'm feeling a bit less overwhelmed after knocking out at least the most timely stuff! Then Jared took me out for a special little birthday dinner, just the two of us, since we haven't had much time together in ages. And we did some test-driving of new vans since ours is really aging. Fun. But I felt suddenly super attached to our van - good old Millie has taken us so many wonderful places! Maybe we'll stick with her a while longer.

Thursday - One of our dear friend's sons got married today so we all helped set up chairs and get things organized plus everyone had assignments during the ceremony and reception (Jared's conducted the ceremony since he's the Bishop, kids helped with food and clean-up, I helped oversee all the neighborhood kids who helped with everything...). Plus we packed up for Idaho (Jared's mom's family reunion tomorrow through the weekend - many relatives we haven't seen in ages) and I had to get everyone's hair cut and get Ashton and Isaac all packed up for scout camp since they have to leave early in the morning on Monday and we won't get back from Idaho until late Sunday night.

It was a beautiful wedding and I was so proud of how well the kids helped with everything and what a wonderful job Jared did conducting the ceremony. We really have a great neighborhood - everyone pitched in and helped so much! (more photos later - but here's a glimpse of Jared's part)

Then I came home and yelled at the kids way too much for being way too slow helping with the final details of packing while Jared was taking care of welfare night at the church. I was SO tired and I really should have just put everyone to bed and got up early to finish but, as happens too often, I was determined to finish something even when the timing was off. But now we're in the car headed to Idaho and I apologized to the kids and I got a good night's sleep and all is well. I'm determined to do a better job recognizing my limitations moving forward so I don't get all over-tired and grumpy and end up being a not-so-nice mom.

Oh, life is full - and good - and hard - and overall, pretty wonderful!

Bear Lake and Thoughts on Blogging

The packed-in fun of the formal reunion is over and we've been enjoying the more mellow aftermath involving relaxing days full of swimming and waterskiing and wakeboarding and running and reading and chatting and coming up with creative meals using the random leftover reunion food supplemented by little trips into the grocery store. There's also a lot of messes to clean up and kids to tuck in bed and bodies to slather with sunscreen. Sometimes the sheer number of people (most of them very little kids) and the accompanying noise and logistics gets a bit much but oh, how I love this place and these people!

We've been at Bear Lake for the past couple weeks and my computer time has been seriously and purposefully limited. It's been great to take a little break from the blog and just do the most necessary Power of Moms stuff (which has been a fair amount given that we're finalizing edits on our second book plus there are all the regular things that need to happen to keep the website humming along).

I'm working on not feeling so beholden to this blog. I love keeping a record of our family's adventures and my ideas and thoughts and I'm so glad that what I write here seems to be enjoyed by lots of people. But when I get caught up in feeling like I need to record everything, this blog starts to feel like a burden and probably gets pretty boring to those who read it. I feel better about life and about the blog when I don't force posts when I'm not feeling it and when I don't try to catch up. I've come to terms with the fact that blogging when I'm in the mood and when I feel that I really have something to say and/or just throwing in a bunch of photos when I've got some beautiful memories I want to capture is what works best for me. So sometimes there's a lot. Sometimes there's a little. There you have it.

I did write an article at the close of our family reunion last week about keys to making family reunions great. Noah and Kristi were our reunion chairs this year and they did a fabulous job! Check it out here if you like:
Three Tips to a Great Family Reunion

And I'll be sharing some favorite photos from this year's Bear Lake fun when I have some spare moments. But today, I want to savor ever last moment before more and more of my siblings and their families have to head back to their far-away homes.

4th of July 2013

Thanks for the great ideas on teaching kids the real meaning of Independence Day. Here's the post I ended up writing with your helpful suggestions:

Helping Kids Understand the Real Meaning of Independence Day

And along with watching lots of great video clips about the Declaration of Independence and the Founding Fathers and all that and having a good talk about what we'd all learned in the car on the way up to Grandma's house, we celebrated here in Ashton, Idaho with Jared's family in the usual way and it was wonderful.

We decorated a pickup and the kids rode in that in the parade (they were a bit overzealous with their candy-throwing and ran out about a block down the road but we gave them the candy other people in the parade threw at us and it all worked out just fine).

As always, the parade had all the great must-haves for an awesome parade in my book.

There were a bunch of fire trucks - this vintage one was our favorite:

 There was a full-on cattle-mover semi truck:

 There were cub scouts on decorated bikes:

 There was high school royalty:

 There were airplanes zooming overhead:

 There were horses:

 And pooper scoopers:

And along with all the people riding in trucks and on tractors or minimally-decorated flat-bed trailers, there was this one pretty awesome float that captured some of the great things about Ashton: Mesa Falls in the background, grain elevators, a big potato to represent the 1000's of acres of potato fields, a husky dog on a little sled since they have dog sled races here in the winter, grain for all the grain fields, and of course, the iconic Frostop root beer mug that dominates the tiny downtown. Nicely done.

After the parade, we ate tasty burgers and listened to excellent live music in the park while the kids did one of their favorite things in the world - played on the old merry-go-round there. I loved these things as a kid and yes, I know, they're dangerous - but so are so many things in this world and I wish this wasn't one of the very last playground merry-go-rounds in the world. I think we're too careful about some playground equipment and other active outdoor activities for kids and not careful enough about things like how much time our kids sit in front of screens. But I'd better not get going on that stuff right now...

Then we headed out to the cabin for a beautiful afternoon of playing in the water and enjoying the scenery and just chatting. Ashton took me for some great wave-runner rides - he's a great driver - makes it fun and gets some serious air but keeps it safe. Oliver and Silas both pulled up on waterskis for the first time and were SO excited and proud.

Hanging out with Max - dogs make everything more wonderful for the twins.

There's water at the cabin this year! For three or four years, the dam was messed up so there was hardly any water here. So great to be able to enjoy the lake again. Love the colors and beauty there so much.

 Silas practicing his waterskiing stance:

 Fun in the boat:

 Jared helping Silas get ready to give it a go:

 Last pointers:

He's up!

 Smiling the WHOLE time:

 Then Oliver tried and got right up as well!

 Big smiles from Oliver as well:

 Love the look of triumph as he got back into the boat:

As I bundled shivering Oliver into a towel, I told him how proud I was of him and he said "I just new I had it in me." Pretty cute.

One of my favorite parts of the day was when I was out on a waverunner with Eliza and Ashton and we stopped to admire the scenery in the perfect late-afternoon sun. The skies were a beautiful blue, the Tetons were crisply in view, the grain fields were waving. I taught them "America the Beautiful" (they had some vague knowledge of it) and we sang together: "Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plains..."

We ended the day with a great fireworks display. Jared's brother found some really amazing fireworks this year and we all sat on Grandma's back porch oohing and ahhing.

Perfect day.

Fourth of July Ideas???

So, quite suddenly, it's the 4th of July this week. Totally snuck up on me.

For most every holiday, I've written up "deliberate mother's guides" on Power of Moms offering ideas for making the holiday meaningful and fun with our kids. But every year, we seem to be travelling during this time and I haven't gotten around to doing a guide for the 4th of July. We typically have a great time up in Ashton, Idaho with Jared's family enjoying the wonderful small-town parade and old-fashioned celebrations (watermelon-eating contest, gunny sack races, three-legged races, etc.) and ending the day by putting on our own fireworks show. But I have to admit, I haven't done much with my kids as far as helping them understand the real meaning of the holiday. They've got some great points of reference since we saw the original "Old Glory" flag at the American History Museum in DC and the very balcony where the Declaration of Independence was read in Boston along with lots of other wonderful historic stuff during our recent road trip. But I'd like to bring it all together for them, somehow, and help them feel more gratitude for this great country we live in and the sacrifices of those who helped make it great.

Anyone got favorite links and ideas to share with me? I'd love suggestions of good websites/movies/etc that can help children understand a bit more about our founding fathers, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, etc.

When I was looking for an interesting podcast to help me keep going on my long, hot run this morning (it's SO HOT here! And the air conditioning isn't working well. Great...), I found this great podcast that helped me really think about the beauty and challenges of our Constitution. Super interesting if you want to listen to it: http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/constitution-usa