Day 5!

It was sad to wake up and have to pack up and leave beautiful Bear Lake!

We needed to move on to the next portion of our trip.

The golf cart came and loaded all of our stuff for us.

That fluffy blue sky...

Our next stop was visiting the Lindblom's in South Jordan! 

It was a 3 hour drive to their house from Bear Lake.

I was exciting that they live by a Cubby's. 

I had been dreaming of their sweet potato fries and cinnamon glaze all year, no joke!

Their tri tip sandwich is also drool worthy. 

Casey got that and I tried the buffalo chicken salad.

Ya, this place NEEDS to come to Arizona pronto!

After lunch we pulled up to see some cousins!

I guess Lucy had been asking non stop when we were getting there.

I know how that goes.

They long awaited moment was here!

While we were giving hugs, I noticed baby Christopher 

( we call him that since my brother is big Christopher),

 was peeking his head out from the stairs checking out what all the commotion was!

It gave me the chuckles. 

Hmm, not so sure what all these strangers are doing in his house.

They didn't miss a beat and started playing happily with each other.

Christmas was the last time they saw each other.

I gave Lucy and Christopher a haircut, then we changed into our swim suits and headed to their

local community pool!

We came last year with them and we couldn't wait to go back!

It's nothing fancy, but we love swimming there so much!

Plus, they have a bomb snack stand.

Nachos, pretzels and cheese, ice cream, fountain drinks.... come on AZ, get with the program!

We stayed till closing then hit up Pie Pizza, the best pizza in UT!

Do you see that extra greasy, cheese, garlic butter, breadstick pan?

Dip that in some ranch and its a party in your mouth. 

If we hadn't gained 20 pounds in the past few days, this would tip our scales for sure.

NIELSENS!

If you looked correctly, yes, we each got our own concretes.

When you only get it once a year there is no sharing involved!

We weren't ready to say goodbye yet, she we waddled ourselves down to the coolest park.

I wish we had parks like these!

It was like a park from the future, I don't know how else to describe it.

Right before Christopher spun them so dizzy they all ran into poles!

I looked up to see Nielsens in a real life filter.

It seriously looked fake!

Whoever designed that building gets major props from me.

We needed to skedaddle to Salt Lake and check into our

hotel. 

Little America, of course:)

It was nice knowing we would see our Lindblom cousins in Oceanside that October!

Last year the River Jordan temple was gated up for renovations.

I made Casey swing us by real quick so we could see it.

After lots of grumbling and moaning, I was the only one getting out

 of the car to take, I guess, a selfie.

This does not capture how BEAUTIFUL this temple is.

I wish you could see the stained glass twinkling in the sunset.

Breath taking.

Next thing I know, these minions came running up to get in the picture with me.

I don't know if Casey pulled a guilt trip on them or what. 

But I was happy to not be in it all by myself:)

Day 4!

Happy 4th of July!

We woke up, threw our suits on and were excited to spend another day at the beach!

First we drove to a cute, shabby chic crepe place for some breakfast.

It didn't seem crowded when we pulled up, but once we ordered  he said

it would be ready in 30 minutes.

Geez! 

Luckily they had corn hole to play and we walked down the street to an off road, 

RZR rental and looked around

So that killed some time while we waited. 

It was worth it!

The boys each got the smores and holy moly, it was rich!

I don't know how they managed to eat it all without doubling over.

Just like last year with the Provo parade and the massive crowds, 

I was nervous about how this beach day was going to turn out. 

I mentally was prepared for chaos.

In my mind I told myself, whatever happens will be ok, we will just make the best of it!

We decided to go to Rendezvous beach again since we knew what to expect and it was the less crowded of the 2 beaches. 

As we were getting closer, we could see the HUNDREDS of pop up canopies lining the sand.

I was about to tell Casey to turn around but I had faith it would all turn out and be a fun day!

Sure enough the parking lot was PACKED.
We luckily found a spot, unloaded and were off to find a tiny spot of sand to
 fit out little family in.

Seriously, it was mayhem.
Hoards and hoards of people, full on bbq grills they hauled from home,
 blow up unicorn floaties galore,
loud music, you name it!

I just started walking through the masses.
It was a hot day and I did not want to be in the back not by the water.
I was on a mission to find the best spot amongst all these people.
I'm pretty sure Casey thought I was crazy.

You could see all the eye darts as I moved in.
Much like on an airplane.
Eyes scanning you from the side praying you don't sit in
 the middle seat so you can have extra room.

I didn't care what they were thinking, I wanted a good
spot and this ain't their beach, lol!

Sure enough I spotted a perfect spot.
Close to the water, enough space on both sides from the other people.
PERFECT!

I dropped our stuff and hollered THIS IS THE PLACE!
Haha.
It sure felt like I found a needle in a haystack.


We pretty much were in the same spot as the day before.

So a side view from the right:

And the left.

You can't even see the rental shack!

Such a crazy difference from the day before.

As we were setting up our umbrella, a  lady and her daughter came up to grab some life

 jackets that were on a picnic table in front of us. 

At first I was thinking crap, they are going to kick us out of this perfect spot.

Instead they were super nice and friendly!

They hadn't noticed their life jackets got put over away from their group until we showed up.

I think that was the reason nobody was sitting there yet. 

They thought the life jackets were reserving it?

I guess I didn't care:/

We got to talking.

They had a large group and said they were having their family reunion.

She pointed over to a bunch of canopies right next to us. 

She was the grandma and her daughter was one of  her 7 children.

They live all over the country so it was a big deal to have everyone together.

 I stated my husband and I come from a family of 7 so that kicked off

our long, fun conversation!

We both have the same religion, and

 even made connections to people we both know, small world!

Towards the end, she was showing me pictures on her phone of their past vacations 

and we became instant friends!

I felt like my mother:)

She makes friends with strangers all of the time.

This was their group.

I knew we would be blessed to find the perfect spot!

It sounds silly, but I was thankful Heavenly Father was so mindful of

 us in that situation.

We instantly got to playing!

Della sat in that spot for a pretty long time.

She is a busy girl, so she must have been intrigued scooping 

out that sand and piling on the bench.

I thought she would shoo her sister away, because she normally does.

But she ended up letting her join in.

I love the smiles on their faces.

While the girls were on land happily playing together, 

the boys were in the water surprisingly having a good time as well!

We did end up renting a jet ski for the last couple of hours. 

They would have been fine without it, but it was fun to take turns going out.

You could see to the bottom of the lake in some spots. 

The water was so unreal. 

While they waited for their turn they would jump the waves.

Or skip rocks

Or dig in the sand.

She conked out FAST on her ride!

It totally rocked her to sleep.

About 6pm they were ready for some dinner.

We were all craving LeBeaus, what we had the first night.

No complaints here!

That peach, cashew shake was money!

We still talk about it.
Of course we needed a raspberry and I think german chocolate was the other.

We went back to the resort. 

The kids played on the playground while I bathed Della and put her to bed.

The kids were excited for the fireworks.

We played some card games on our porch until it was dusk.

We had our fire lit and were sitting and talking until Casey got out our left over pizza.

He started out just holding the box over the fire to warm it up.

Then he rigged up his own little wood fire pizza oven stand.

See it there?

He was quite proud of it. 

By that time, while it was "cooking",  fireworks were going off in 

 all different directions over the lake.

I was busy videoing and oo"ing and aw'ing !

 The kids and Casey were too busy eating  and raving about this amazing pizza and how good it was.

I looked up to see Lane roasting his pizza with the skewer!

I was in the middle of videoing  the grand finale when Casey in the background is telling me

"you have to try this pizza, its so good. Seriously babe, you gotta try this crust"

And Rusty is chanting PIZZA BUSINESS! 

After it was over I stopped the video I said, ok I'll try the pizza!

Casey: oh, I didn't know you were video taping.

I think they were oblivious to the fireworks and so focused on that pizza!

We watched the video and it gave us serious giggles.

I'm glad they all had a great 4th of July and midnight snack!