Sunday, August 8, 2010
Ah . . . Bear Lake. One of my favorite spots on this earth! And we just got back from two whole days of bummin' on the beach. (And now we're trying to recover--poor James is a tomato. But I'm getting ahead of myself.) It all starts back in January, when my cousin Brianna decided to orchestrate a Johnson family reunion at Bear Lake and set August 5-6 as the dates. Since that time, we'd been counting down to lake time!
On Thursday, we got to the North Shore and set up camp:
This is actually a picture before all of camp was set up--it actually got bigger. All told, there were about 64 of us there ("All Because Two People Fell in Love" as Brad Paisley sings). And we made quite an impressive camp, if I do say so myself--and I do, because this is my blog and I can say whatever I like. Anyway, it was great to see cousins I don't get to see very often and Bethany immediately jumped into the fun--or into the lake, which is the same thing! Fun! Fun! Fun! She didn't seem daunted at all by the lake's chilly temp.
Here she is with first cousin Lizzy and second cousin Savanna:
Rub-a-dub dub, three girls in a tub! (Er, tube.) My sister Julie, her husband Chris and daughter Lizzy drove all the way from Arizona to attend the reunion. She'd been looking forward to it for forever. Which brings us to the good news and the bad news. The good news: Julie is expecting again, so another baby is on its way! The bad news: Julie is SO sick when she's preggers. She just throws up her toenails and tosses her cookies and just has a hard, hard time. So she didn't even get to attend the reunion--she just stayed on my mom and dad's couch and cried while Chris fed her ginger snaps and tried every home remedy in the book. So we missed Julie terribly, but got to enjoy her daughter, who came with my parents.
Bethany LOVES her cousin Lizzy! She's really missed them since they moved to AZ.
Anyway, it didn't take us long to really dig into the fun. And apart from loving my aunts and uncles and cousins for being wonderful people and all-around good folk, I must admit I also love them for their water toys! We had three ski boats there and two Sea Doos, and if any of them read this blog I just have one thing to say:
THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR WATER TOYS. FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART.
Here we are on Uncle Kelly's (and Aunt Sharon's!)boat. And although the other boats there were just fabulous, I must admit I like Kelly and Sharon's boat the very best. Why? It reminds me of Grandpa Johnson's boat. And boating and Grandpa are all tangled up in my heart in those really deep, permanently imprinted places. The end.
Anyway, here we are getting ready to enjoy the ride (Bethany's first boat ride!) with me in my floppy beach hat. Even if this hat is somewhat old ladyish, in my mind I am a 1950's beach babe when I wear it. And I'm all about creating my own reality. In fact, I'm this close to taking down all of my bathroom mirrors and replacing them with pictures of Kimberly Williams Paisley so I can pretend I look like her. But I digress. Here we are on the boat:
Here Bethie is, enjoying the ride:
And here she is again, REALLY enjoying the ride:
"And she had fun, fun, fun 'till her daddy took the Four Winns away . . .")
All of the little kids got a turn driving the boat, actually--and believe me, it was a highlight in Bethie's young life! We haven't seen the end of her boat driving career. I must say that I really love boating. I've missed it so much. There's just something about the wind in your face and the spray of the water and the total exhilaration, you know? Like you haven't a problem in the world.
I miss Grandpa so much.
Anyway, back to the lake. After trying her hand at driving a ski boat, Bethany decided to try her hand at rafting. So Dad and James took four little girls out in the raft. I must say, the men looked like they coordinated outfits--swim trunks, tee shirts and fedora hats from Australia! But it was all unplanned, I assure you. The spirit of Steve Irwin lives on--but no crocs were spotted on this expedition. Not even the Bear Lake monster.
Here are Bethany, Lizzy, Cambrie and Macy on their big rafting adventure:
And now comes my favorite part of the day: the Sea Doo. Bless you, Mike, for bringing Sea Doos and for sharing them so generously. I sure like that Mike. (I may or may not be brown-nosing in hopes that he'll read this and share his water toys again . . .) After my experience, I really think owning a Sea Doo is in my future. And if not, we'll at least rent them often because hot dang, they are SO MUCH FUN. A blast, actually!
Do we not look cooler than Arthur Fonzerli? (Don't answer that, I create my own reality, remember. And my reality is that I look like Kimberly Williams Paisley.) But wow, what a ride. Bethany and I just loved it. In fact, Bethany loved it so much that she fell asleep after awhile! He he he.
My hero, driving me off into my happy place:
Not long after our boating, Sea Dooing, rafting, swimming, seashell hunting and sand toy playing, we noticed that the sky looked, well, rather ominous. And then we heard thunder. Yikes. Now, I'm not a scientist but where there is thunder, there generally is lightening. Am I right? So I started feeling a little nervous. We were all back on the beach, just doing our thing and watching the sky, when Mike starts yelling, "Everybody in the cars, now!" Apparently, Mike, who has had experience with lightening before, saw that people's hair was starting to stick up and you know, that's just not good.
Now, I'm quite fond of a lightening and thunderstorm when I'm in the safety of my own little house and snug little bed, but on the beach? That really makes me anxious. So when Mike yells, "Everybody in the cars, now!" I take heed. I start picking up three-year-olds and tossing them in the back of my Pilot, which is how I ended up with four three-year-old girls in the back of my Pilot! Everyone is in their respective cars and all of our antennas are buzzing with electricity and I'm feeling anxious but trying to be calm, because moms are supposed to be calm. And I have four three-year-olds in the back of my car who are starting to get restless and testy. So what do I do?
Fortunately, I remember that I have my portable DVD player and a few Backyardigans videos. So I lined all of the girls up, plugged in the movie and kept them plied with Golden Oreos. That's what I did.
Judge me all you want, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and if you have four three-year-olds crammed into the back of your car (at the beach!) in the rain, wind and lightning, you'd give them each 15 Golden Oreos, too, if that's what it takes to keep everybody happy. And bless The Backyardigans for coming through for me again!
So the big question at this point was what to do now? Do we wait out the storm or head home? We all tried to wait it out for awhile, but when it became apparent that it was going to be a long wait (and after one of our cars--Matthew and Laura's?--got beaned and dented by a tumbling canopy, most of us decided to call it a day. So the adults all ran out of our cars and gathered up things as fast as we could. (Jake got zapped a little when touching the metal poles of the awning, as I recall.) And we got the heck out of there. I returned all of the three-year-olds to their respective families (keeping our three-year-old, of course) and we all headed home.
We got to Mom and Dad's house and ate the dinner we were supposed to eat at the beach, said "Hi!" to Julie on the couch (at least we got to eat with her!) scrubbed sunscreen and sand off the little girls, went to bed and just died. What is it about playing so much that wears a body out? But it was worth it. What a fun day.
And the next day, we went back for more. Stay tuned for Part Two, which I'll post later. You see, I haven't downloaded all of the pictures yet and frankly, I'm too tired to do that tonight. So if you care to hear about Day Two of our adventure, be sure to check back!
