Bear Lake Family Reunion

Thursday afternoon we headed to Bear Lake KOA for Janas family reunion. This was our first trip with our new camper. When we got there and opened up the trailer we saw that a gallon of milk had fallen out of the fridge and exploded all over inside. It was mostly dried by the time we found it. Not a good thing. We cleaned it up the best we could. Scrubbed down the floor and cabinets. We got the trailer all hooked up and as I was walking around the back of the trailer I looked at the licence plate... Expired 1-2014. Son of a. We thought we had til the end of the year. So I hurried and called my Dad too see if he could find the card that they mail with the pin on it so I could do it online or if he could run to the DMV really quick and register it since its all still in his name. I called him at 4:40 and the DMV is in Brigham. He was at home in Willard. He couldnt find the registration card with the pin on it so he ran into Brigham before they closed and dropped the registration off to Todd and Jana who were just getting ready to leave their house and come up. 

So FINALLY we got our trailer and camp all set.

Kennedy couldnt wait to start playing. Her and Landon went to play mini golf

Chris grilled up burgers and dogs for everyone for dinner. He wont this portable grill at the archery shoot in Elko. Its awesome. The legs come off and so do the sides and it all folds up nicely under the grill box. 

I sat back and supervised

 Dinner was great! We had so many foods and salads. All the meals everyone brings something so we always had all kinds of salads and desserts

 Kennedy and Debbie (Janas sister) took turns throwing peans into each others mouths

 Then Landon (her son) wanted to join and and was throwing watermelon balls into her mouth

 Grandma and Grandpa are always so cute!

Kennedy was so excited to get to spend the night in our camper. 

That next morning Todd, Chris and I got up early and went for a morning hike. When we got back I went into the trailer and noticed a huge wet spot on the carpet. Our water heater had a connector that was leaking and running all along the bottom of the tank and onto the carpet. So we cleaned up all the water and scrubbed the floors under neath because it still smelled like rotten milk now that it had gotten warmer. 

 The weather was pretty yucky on Saturday. It rained on and off all day and was cloudy. The girls sat out and played card games. 

 Kennedy spent almost the whole day on the play ground with various cousins. I took a nap. Taylor came up to spend the night. Chris and Taylor were watching movies and sharing YouTube videos. Kennedy was chowing down...again. This child had been eating non stop for over a month!!! A MONTH. Shes constantly hungry and cant go more than two hours with out having to eat something.

 Our trailer still stunk. We went over to the ACE and bough some air fresheners and fabric spray. I sprayed down EVERYTHING inside. Opened up all the windows and vents. We scrubbed the carpet with carpet cleaner, hung air fresheners from the A/C. Recleaned the linoleum. It only helped some. The colder we kept the a/c the better it smelled. One of Janas cousins and his wife rented Kennedy a banana bike so she could ride around camp like all the other kids.

 Jana in so many words had told him he had better get his ass up there for the weekend because hes now apart of the family and he wasnt missing the reunion. He actually is really shy and was worried about it. He didnt want to come out of the camper so Grandma Kathy, Jana, Debbie, Trish and two of Grandmas sisters stopped in the middle of their card game and went over INTO our camper to say hi to Taylor. Jana introduced him to everyone as her adopted son which really confused some people. They told him they weren't leaving the camper til he came out. Taylor was so embarrassed he had to come out of the camper after that. 

 He just loves pictures so much!

 Dinner

 Each night they gave tractor rides to the kids at 7. They had a theme going on this week of Christmas in July so Santas helper was there to drive them around.

 I had told Kennedy if she was good we could go the night before. We were in the middle of playing Bingo when he came around. We stopped and ran over to line up.

 She was so excited! We sang Jingle Bells as we rode

 Then we went back to playing games. We played Bingo and a name match game and raced to put together a puzzle. All games were competing against the other tables

 That night we watched a movie with Todd and Jana. When we were puttin K to bed some of the relatives were out at the fire pit playing guitar. Mike and Trish had their trailer all decorated up for Christmas.

 We went over and joined the fire circle. It was so much fun! They played all kinds of songs from Eagles, Nirvana, Indigo Girls, Blind Melon to more modern things. 

 We were pretty mellow for the most part until we did a mix where we sang the chorus to Jessies Girl and Country Grammar at the same time splitting the group in half. Then I looked and saw the security golf car sneaking up on us. They crept up to our campsite with their lights off until they were almost to our camp then they turned on the brights and floored it. Two guys in their late 60's jumped out of the golf cart with their flashlights shinning in our faces telling us it was past quiet time. We tried so hard not to laugh and packed up for the night.

 The next day we went to the Ice Caves (see post next) and afterwards we went to the Bear Lake Pizza Co for lunch. Todds relative ( I cant remember how they're related) used to own it back in the day and he spent many summers working there. Chris used to go up and work in the shake shop over Raspberry days when he was little. So they always have to stop at this place when they are up there.

Silly Miss K 

 They have the best raspberry shakes!

 They ordered the Old Ephriams Challenge... which is a huge pizza and if you finish it you get your picture on the wall. its 24 slices! But we had already had shakes and they got cheese bread too... those arent too good of odds to finish that big of a pizza.

 The thing is huge!

 We sure gave it a good effort

 We were so close but it just didnt happen. We were pizza sick. 

 We had gone to the pool on Friday afternoon once it stopped raining. It was nice because there were almost no little kids there. Saturday we went again around the same time. It was after the heat of the afternoon rush but it was still plenty warm.. and after we had to a nap to recover from our pizza overdose. Taylor had left to go home since he had to work Sunday morning at 5am.

 Daddy came down and met us in the pool. Turns out one of our friends Lindsay and her mom Christy were up there for the weekend. We ran into them at the pool.

 Kennedy kept having Daddy throw her across the pool

 We went back and got cleaned up and headed over to dinner. We were so full none of us could eat besides Kennedy. Santa came around again Chris took her this time.

After our non-dinner dinner a bunch of us headed down to go play mini golf

Kennedy, Landon, Debbie, Greg and Trish 

 Mike

 After golf we Chris and I went and played a game of horseshoes with some more of his family (I suck with names so they just get called relatives and family!) We were SO close to winning and in the end they beat us by 1 point. The horseshoe pit is right next to the park. Kennedy played, came over to give me a kiss and went back to playing some more. 

 That next morning it was time to go home. We ate breakfast, packed up all the camps and filled the trailers.We were pulling out by like 9:30. We figured we would make it home in pretty good time. We had a lot of cleaning to do when we got home and to try and get the smell of old milk out of the trailer. We followed Todd and Jana home. Kennedy was so tired she slept the entire way home..well almost..we were right at the last turn dropping into Mantua... Todd and Jana were just rounding the turn when Chris saw shreds of our tire in his mirror. 

Almost home and we blew a tire in Sardine. We called Todd and Jana and told them don't worry we blew a tire but we had a spare and would be on our way soon. Todd says "Well do you need me to turn around and help you guys? Does Chris have... Oh hell what am I saying of course Chris has everything he needs its Chris!!" That couldn't be more true lol! It was a roadside tire so thankfully we were able to pull off far enough to be out of traffic.

Well we got the trailer jacked up high enough, got the bad tire off and were starting to put on the spare and it just wouldnt go on. We realized it was the wrong lug pattern. It was so close but just enough off... Son of a!

 We called Todd back and they were just unloading their trailer. They said they'd be right on the way back up and bring us a spare that fit. Kennedy was awake and of course starving by this point so I got some chips and cookies from the trailer and we had a picnic while we waited

 We got the tire changed and headed for home. When we got there we pulled EVERYTHING out of the camper. We shampooed the carpets twice, wiped everything down with pine sol, used a soda ash/hydrogen peroxide mix on the floors and left baking soda to get rid of the smell. I went in the camper this morning before work and it was worse! I HATE SPILLED MILK! Its totally worth crying over. I dont care what anyone says.

Besides all of the small mishaps we had it really was a great trip! Kennedy had a blast. She said its the best vacation ever. She drew us this when we got home :)