Utah Trip, Part 1

Last week we headed to Utah to meet my family for a family reunion at Bear Lake. We had such a great time relaxing, playing and eating together! We left Saturday afternoon and drove to Boise. At the last second we found out that 2 of our favorite college friends were meeting in the Tri-Cities area to hang out for the afternoon. It worked out perfectly for us to stop by and join them for a couple hours. 

Allen with his buddies Dave and Tyler

 All of our kids (13 total):

We stayed at Allen's moms house that night and then drove into Salt Lake on Sunday afternoon. After getting some groceries for the week we met up with Allen's mom and Stephen and Meghan and their girls for dinner at In-n-Out. Steve and Meg had just driven in from Dallas for the week so it was awesome to be able to see them for a bit. Kenna and Lauren just adore each other and we had to pry them apart when saying goodbye. How I wish we lived closer to family!

The rest of the week we played, played, played. We split our time between the lake and the pool at the cabin we rented. It was a blast!

 We stopped for the famous raspberry shakes almost every day on the way home from the lake. Super yummy!

 Nieces on the deck

 One day we rented a couple jet skis and had a total blast! All the kids got lots of turns and Carter even got to drive for awhile. Allen is convinced that jet skis will be our next "toy" purchase. We loved them and loved how easy they are to transport.

 Night swimming at the pool with glow sticks. This ended up being really fun for the kids and they had fun diving for the sticks in the dark.

 This baby LOVED being in the sand this year (in contrast to our trip to FL last summer where she screamed if she touched it. She didn't love the water but would sit under the canopy with Grandma and Grandpa and dig and dig. She was the star of the show with my family and the cousins fought over her every day!

 The only boy cousins really have to stick together in the mess of estrogen that is our family. Parker and Mason were super kind to include Carter in their adventures. He gobbled up the boy time!

The day before we left Bear Lake it poured rain all day. Not the best for us PNWesterners but much needed to help put out the forest fires. Allen and I decided to rent a 6 person bike for the afternoon and we had a lot of fun riding in the rain. There was tons of wildlife out along the riding path and the kids loved seeing the deer and other animals. We were wet and cold by the end but made a great memory together. 

The kids loved warming up in the hot tub every day after time in the cold lake. 

Lots more pictures to come of our trip! Big thanks to my parents (as always) for making this fun trip happen!

(ETA: Every one of these pictures was taken with my iPhone! I adore not having to lug around my huge camera and still get pretty great pictures. It has been quite liberating and I take more pictures than ever. I'll still get out my big camera for low-light pictures because the iPhone isn't the best for those but I'm pleasantly surprised at how good the pics are during the day)