Perks

This last weekend Hopekids hosted a getaway to Bear Lake. Bear Lake is this incredibly blue (like almost tropical) lake in the middle of a bunch of barren hills. It is peaceful and quiet and you can drive through gorgeous Logan Canyon to get there, so it is pretty wonderful. The owners of the KOA Kampground up there graciously invited Hopekids to come spend the weekend in cabins and RV's for free. It was a great break - and boy, did we need a break. We had the most hectic week and just kept looking forward to our little vacation as our motivation to keep on going. Like on Monday night when Eric marathoned through school, studying, and a very late night test, and then rode his bike 40 minutes home. Or on Tuesday night when Eric had been working on our broken down car for a few hours and then realized that the correct part hadn't arrived in the mail yet. Or on Thursday when we rented a car because of said broken down car and part ordering error because there was no way around getting up to Salt Lake for Elena's chemo - not to mention getting Lily down to the babysitters twenty minutes away and getting Eric back and forth from work to class to work again. Or on Friday at four in the morning when we finally went to sleep after completing the car repair only to be back up in four hours to return the rental car. It came down to the wire - Eric turned in his last assignment at 4pm (that got pushed back because of the car not cooperating with the plans we made for the week) and we scurried to leave town. We were very glad to arrive on Friday night and take a little break!

We arrived very late at night, so we couldn't see much of the outside, but we had fun just exploring the inside. Isn't it amazing how new scenery - no matter how simple- can lift your spirits and be so exciting? We stayed in a one room cabin - it had a heater, electricity, a full size bed, a bunkbed, a few little shelves, coat hangers, mirror, and a desk and chair. It was perfect for our needs for the weekend.

Mom and Dad's bed

Elena slept on the top bunk and the bottom bunk became a "secret hideout".

Lily's little corner

Elena was IN LOVE with this set-up. She thought it was the coolest thing in the world to sleep in the top bunk - AND in a sleeping bag. Life's simple pleasures. :)

A little messy, but there is the view of the front of the room.

Ah, this girl. Those eyes and those little curls just do us in...

Just around the corner there was a bath house with surprisingly nice private bathrooms and private shower rooms. This was my first experience with KOA, but I was surprised how family friendly and clean and nice everything was. Across from our cabin we had a fresh water spigot for drinking water and right in our "front yard" was a fire pit and a picnic table. We also had a covered porch with a bench and swing. It really was a nice little set up. The girls were just in love with "our house".

The view in the morning - our front porch

Our cabin, fire pit, and picnic table

In the morning, Eric started working on a fire (it was freezing up there for all but about six hours in the middle of the day) and we all did a little exploring and playing.

For some reason, this sight made me smile really big and I had to snap a picture. Little girl in a big, puffy coat.

Eric working on the fire

Elena mimicking Eric and making "little fires"

Love this face

The girls getting lessons about firebuilding

Lily showing Daddy that the fire was "ot!"

Pretty things we saw

Lily with a flower

After kicking around our cabin and chatting with our neighbors for the morning, we had some lunch and then loaded up to go see the lake. Before we'd even left the campground, Elena and Lily were fast asleep in their carseats. And it turns out that it's really difficult (impossible?) to actually get down to play on the beach unless you own some water front property or are staying in some members only timeshare on the water front. So, we decided to take a drive instead and let the girls sleep.

We drove up into Idaho and then headed south again. After a while we found ourselves at Bear Lake State Park, which is mostly a pier you can walk out on and a bunch of picnic tables overlooking the water. And we were actually parked on the side of the road outside the "park" because there was a fee to sit in your car inside. :) But, it was a lot nicer than it sounds because Bear Lake was pretty empty and it was very quiet and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. Gorgeous!


WORD OF WARNING: This next bit is not for the squeamish...

While we were driving, Eric had seen a couple of dead snakes on the road and hey, we were on vacation, so he decided to get out and go investigate. I was feeling warm and drowsy myself, so I opted to stay in the car and nap with the girls. About five minutes later, I was woken up by Eric opening the car door, holding a garter snake, and asking if we had any sort of bucket or large can. I drowsily responded no and that we were not taking that snake back anywhere with us.

I'm alright with snakes - I really am. I think they're kind of cool and I've held them several times. Eric also knows a lot about different types of snakes and so I feel especially comfortable with them when he's around. I do, though, get a little nervous about them biting me and I'm not down with finding random, escaped snakes under my feet in the car or at home. I'm more of the, "Wow, that's cool to look at outside" type of a person.

I closed my eyes to try and fall asleep again. A few minutes later, I opened my eyes, wondering what Eric was up to, and glanced in my side mirror. And what did I see, but a very excited Eric running up to my side of the car with a ginormous handful of snakes. He wasn't running up to scare me, just very excited about what was going on. :) I opened my door to see what exactly was going on.

"Babe, there are snakes EVERYWHERE! Look at this! It's so cool! I've never seen anything like this - they are EVERYWHERE! I just stopped catching them because I couldn't hold anymore."

It was pretty hilarious. I'm pretty sure I got time-warped back to when Eric was about ten years old - catching snakes and scaring the bejeebers out of his sisters. I love that man. I love that he was so child-likely (is that a word?) enthusiastic and in awe and that he ran up to show me his handful of snakes.

This picture makes me laugh out loud everytime I look at it. My husband is crazy. :) Look at that smile. And those snakes are kind of awesome and gross all at the same time. Kind of looks like Medusa's hair, doesn't it?

I again reassured Eric that we didn't have a bucket and he gave the snakes back their freedom. Here they are scattering to the wind. Now this part actually was kind of freaky because a bunch of them started coming at me. Eww.

Look at me sacrificing myself to get such a close-up shot. ;)

As we were driving away, Eric told me that this was an awesome vacation. :)

We drove back towards "downtown" Garden City in search of a famous Bear Lake Raspberry Shake. We'd had them once before a few years ago at a family reunion in Bear Lake and they are not to be missed. Most shops were closed for the season, but we finally found one that was open. Mmmm, those fresh raspberries make the shake amazing. It did not disappoint.

The girls woke up around this time and we took some time to explore the gift shop and play around in the warm afternoon sun and stretch their legs.

Elena wanted a picture with this pumpkin. She was pretending to be a witch.

Elena was excited to see the "bear" of Bear Lake

Then we headed back to camp where we met some more friends down our row of cabins. Elena had a spectacular time playing with a "real" boy (usually she just makes Lily be her "husband"). It was so funny to watch the two of them. Jack was more passive and Elena was definitely more aggressive. :) She was holding his hand and marching him all over the place and trying to make him "marry" her. She kept handing him this spider ring she had in her pocket and telling him to ask her to marry him. Jack was a huge sweetheart and just kind of walked around with her, but didn't say much. When he had to run off to get dressed warmer, Elena comandeered someone's dad and tried to make him her prince and get him to ask her to marry him. She is crazy. :)

After playing for a while, we headed back to our cabin for some dinner- hot dogs and roasted corn on the cob.

Eric had fun taking pictures of the fire

Lily and I had fun taking pictures of ourselves

Later that evening we had THE most delectable s'mores (better than regular s'mores in my opinion and I'm kind of a s'more purist, in general). Marshmallows and Western Family Fudge Stripe Cookies - they have to be Western Family brand, not the real brand. The Western Family brand are large and square shaped like a graham cracker and a lot thicker and more chocolately then the regular brand and they don't have that super fake taste like the real ones. Normally we do graham crackers, chocolate bars, and marshmallows like the rest of the world. But we figured that it would be cheaper to buy one cookie rather than graham crackers and chocolate. We stumbled on these particular fudge stripe cookies by accident because the Western Family brand was cheaper in the convienence store, but holy cow! They were amazing. They also had about 1000 calories each (hence the goodness). But we were on vacation. :)

Once it got dark, we stargazed for a bit. Wow.... the stars really are amazing out away from the city. We saw so many shooting stars! When the cold chased us inside, we finished out the night with a game of throwing Sequence chips into a cup from across the room and a round of Dora, the Explorer "Memory". :) Then we had an early bedtime because Miss Lily was not feeling super hot by that point.

Lily was quite sick by Sunday morning and so we packed up camp as soon as we could to get her home and to the doctor. While Eric and I loaded things up, Elena found another little boy friend to play with. He had a little wind up helicopter and some paper airplanes that they took turns flying.

It was actually very, very interesting and helpful for me to watch her play with these two boys over the weekend and to talk with their moms. I had some mothering "revelations". Jack's mom told me that he tended to be more passive and so it was good for him to play with someone like Elena who was more outgoing and aggressive. I thought that was such an interesting comment and perspective. I don't know if I can describe my thought process.... But I hadn't really thought of Elena in terms of her personality compared to someone else's and where that might come in handy and actually benefit her. I had been comparing her to kids, but in the wrong way, I think. I was comparing her and thinking, "Man, she can be so sweet and charming, but sometimes, she just drives me crazy and she seems so much worse than other kids!" But this mom's comment totally changed my perspective and I saw Elena as this little person with a personality of her own that is sweet, imaginative, funny, "4 going on 15", confident, strong-willed, dramatic, and sometimes almost seeming a little too exuberant for me - all being important parts of who she is. I don't know if that makes any sense. But it really was a revelation for me and helped me to understand her a little better and hopefully, taking that perspective, being able to keep patience with her a little easier. I guess it just shed some light for me on why she does some of the things that she does. Eric and I were talking about it on the way home and we decided that is she can stay sweet, that her confidence is a very, very good thing and will serve her well in life. She just loves herself and she faces every situation with gusto.

Leaving early allowed us to make the drive through Logan Canyon in daylight, rather than in pitch black like on the way up. I'm so glad we got to see it. It is AMAZING! It's a scenic byway - and for good reason! It is so beautiful! It helped that we are in the height of fall and all the trees and bushes are brilliantly colored, but wow! It was a rocky, hilly mixture of deep green pine trees and red, orange, and yellow colored deciduous trees. There was also a stream running through the length of the canyon that added the perfect touch. Oh, it was so pretty! It is definitely a must see if you have the chance.

The batteries in the camera died :(, so I only caught the beginning of the canyon before it got really rocky and you really got deep inside, but take a look at this:

It was a short, but wonderful getaway! It was so nice to be out away from real life and fall in love with my family again and to be in such a beautiful, quiet place where I could have great thoughts and little "revelations" flow so freely. Bear Lake was also not too shabby of a place to spend the bulk of our monthly steroid time. :) Thanks HopeKids!!