This year we booked the whole south end of Sunrise campground for our family reunion in early July and we had an absolutely marvelous time in the mountains with the whole ding dang family. We all met up there on the afternoon of Wednesday, 6 July.
It was hot in the valley and we kept willing the thermometer to keep dropping as we moved higher through the canyon. While it wasn't ever what I would call cold (except for in the Pickleville Playhouse on Friday ;), we did enjoy the shady campground and being together. Highlights of day one: arrival and camp set up, fajita dinner by the Blanchards, campground playing and exploring, fun camp packets for the kids from (teacher) Ky, fire and s'mores.
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| He was so excited and so tuckered out before we even got started! |
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Lots of hammocks through the campground, but
Uncle Mike's by far the biggest and the best! |
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Diligently working on their worksheets from Kylie.
(She had prizes for if they finished all the word searches
and i spy sheets, so they were highly motivated students.) |
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| Adults adulting. |
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| Yay! Mugs is here let's reheat her dinner. |
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These boys lapped the campground on their bikes
over and over and over. |
Thursday, 7 July, started out with breakfast by the Herzogs (sausage gravy and dutch oven biscuits - oh yeah! It is definitely true that we ate really well on this campout!). We hung around camp all morning, making pony bead key chains and relaxing. Then we packed up our beach stuff and lunches and headed to rest area at the south end of the Bear Lake where we ate our lunch on the picnic tables by the new visitor's center.
We found a suitable beachy area and plopped for a few hours of fun in the sun and sand (mud) and water. We brought our kayak and had fun exploring out into the green waters of the lake. It's so pretty out there! We can't leave Garden City without a shake at LaBeau's, so we got those (with fries) as our appetizer to tide us over till Nate and Shelly's elk smash burgers for dinner (yes, my parents brought their blackstone camping at his request - they are such good sports!). Another campfire and s'mores rounded off the evening.
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| Dig in! |
On Friday morning we just hung out again. More beads, more bike rides, a little work by Terrell. Then we hopped in the cars for a little hike on the Limber Pine Trail (all of us except Gregg, T, and Mugs who went mountain biking instead). The trail is perfect for little hikers, though this might have been the longest time we've ever taken to complete the loop - almost two hours for just over a mile! We found three geocaches along the way, which was definitely exciting, especially since the first one we found was "the bear den", a special cache that was well stocked with stuffed teddy bears, enough for any and all kids who wanted one! (The next two caches were definitely less exciting in comparison.)
We got back to camp and had lunch and chill time for a couple hours then headed down to Bear Lake again to watch Beauty and the Beast at the Pickleville Playhouse. Gregg was the only smart one who brought and wore a hoodie - they had that place ice cold inside! We all enjoyed the show (maybe not the 2-year-old crowd so much; it was a little intense for them) and then chowed down on Hawaiian BBQ at Aloha Family Grill. Back at camp we had one more campfire with singing and stories and then everyone was shipped off to bed.
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| The twos "working in their office". Ha. |
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| More adulting behavior. |
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Heather brought washi tape and water colors
for a fun little morning art project. |
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| The cousin hikers. |
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| Always gotta snap a pic on the ostrich tree! |
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| Bear den geocache: check! |
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| Geocache number two: check! |
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Grandpops and Grammy and all the grands at the
big tree. |
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| Geocache #3, a micro (just in a film canister): check! |
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| And the bikers had fun, too. |
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| I was so proud of Gregg for getting a group shot! |
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Oh these two. They wanted to be in my parents'
trailer all. the. time. but sometimes we could convince
them to sit out under the bed on this little curb to read
stories to each other. |
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| Trouble with a capital T. |
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| Waiting outside for the show to begin. |
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| And now we're waiting inside for the show to begin. |
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| They got to say hi to Belle and the Prince. |
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Cal wrote a play for all the cousins (and Grandma)
to perform and they worked on it every day. At last
it was showtime! |
On Saturday morning, I was intending to sneak out of our trailer to visit the loo and then continue on over to the overlook to catch the sunrise. It was early, just after 6 am, and the night before I had locked the car, but left the passenger side door open so I could sneak in and get my shoes or whatever I needed without beeping it to open. Turns out you can't leave the passenger door unlocked unless you want to make the alarm go off (it works fine with the driver door, though, because I had done that the day before!). I was so embarrassed and horrified to have it go off so early in a campground. Luckily, it only seemed to wake up my own little family, so we all went on a walk to the overlook together and it turned out to be a beautiful morning together.
After that we had breakfast of eggs and toast thanks to the Olsens and then it was time to pack up and head home. We did figure out a way to get a group pic, rigging up Nate's phone on Ky's wagon standing on end, with his remote on his watch to trigger the shutter. I think it turned out great! I sure love these people and our time together!
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| Good mornin'. |
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| I wonder where the campground got its name? |
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The flowers all along the edges of the road through
the campground were so lovely. |
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| Everybody loves Grandma! |
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Grandma had her hands full with these three
while all the parents packed up. |
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Just had to document Gregg's tricky packing job
getting three bikes inside the trailer! |
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Mugs brought this fun game and the kids had a good
time with it Saturday morning. |
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| The whole clan. |
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And here we are, back where we started with this post.
Tuckered right out! |
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