Family is something that is important to me. I am the youngest of 5 girls, and only one of those sisters lives even remotely close to me, so I don’t really get to see the others as often as I would like. Every other year, we try to put together a little “reunion” to be able to spend time with each other, stay up WAY too late, laugh so hard we start crying, and then end up sleeping in way too late because of the night before. We get to do a few fun activities, our kiddos get to spend time with cousins, and it’s just really a fun time! This year lived up to that.

We ended up going to Bear Lake, UT. If you have never been to Bear Lake, it’s right along the Utah/Idaho border, and it’s the most gorgeous shade of blue, which we found out was from limestone reacting with the water. It’s gorgeous! Growing up, we only lived about 45 minutes from Bear Lake so that was our go-to spot for summer fun. What I didn’t remember, however, was how FREAKING cold the water was. Now, mind you, I’m use to the Columbia River which isn’t known for being very warm. Especially in the early summer. It’s not until about August or September that it starts warming up a little. I had thought that Bear Lake couldn’t be any colder than the river, and I was so, SO wrong. When we were planning for our trip, I thought it would be SO fun to rent a boat. I mean, why not, right!? It’s a lake! What’s a lake without a boat. As I was packing for the trip, I was thinking in the back of my mind that it really wasn’t going to be THAT warm while we were there, but I kept pushing that to the back of my mind. So the plan was to go boating on Monday of our trip, but due to unfortunate events and crazy northern Utah weather with crazy thunderstorms, we ended up postponing our lake excursion to Tuesday. Instead of doing the boat thing Monday, we went up going to Minnetonka Cave!

PC: our cave guide, Bryson, with my brother-in-law’s phone 😀

Now, I’m not much of one that likes the idea of trekking into the insides of a mountain, where I could potential be stuck there forever if, say, an earthquake happened, but I was with my entire family so I figured if we were going to die, at least it would all be together. I really didn’t even think about it once I was in there though. It was SO cool, and I got an idea why people love to go explore caves! Minnetonka Cave is a 9 room cave, full of stalagmites, stalactites, and a whopping 444 stairs in and out. At one point of the ‘hike’ (because let’s be honest, that’s what it felt like) there is the “stairway to heaven” which I happened to rename the “stairway to hell” 77 super steep stairs.

Now any normal day, I could probably trek up 77 stairs no problem, at home. But add about 4000 feet more above sea level, and a 30 lbs child on my back, and I literally thought I was going to die. The only thing that was keeping me going was the fact that my marathon-running brother-in-law was breathing [almost] as hard as I was. PHEW! I’m not in as worse shape as I thought. Luckily, we got to see some bats, and baby bats, and nobody slipped on the slick cave floor, or had any mishaps on the steps, and we all got out of the cave safely. It was pretty neat!

After the cave, we just hung out, had dinner, and enjoyed each others company. We rented an awesome house just up the hill from the lake and it really was perfect for all 32 of us. The kids spent most of the trip downstairs playing Xbox, or Wii, or some form of video games down there, and we enjoyed the somewhat-quiet time with each other!

Tuesday was scheduled for the boat. The weather was looking better, it was a little warmer (a measly 66 degrees), and we thought we would have a grand time. We got to the lake, we got the boat launched, and I rented a wakesurfer because I noticed the water was a little choppy and I’m a big sissy when it comes to wakeboarding in less than “glass.” As I was getting the wakesurfer, I happened to ask the guy working the rental shop how cold the water was; “oh, mid 40’s-50.” I had to pick my jaw off the floor, and then I quickly was evaluating my decision. That and there were another round of some NASTY thunderheads coming our way, but we toughed it out.

All was fine and dandy until about a third of the way from the shore and our boundary of where we could go, the boat just died. Like going full boar through the lake and then completely stopped. No motor, to power, nada. We managed to get the boat running again, only to have it do the same thing about 3 times. I kept having flashbacks of all the times our boat has died in river over the last 4 summers (which has happened at least once a summer due to a flex plate issue). The worst part of it all was the water was getting sketchier and sketchier. That said thunderstorm was right on top of us, with crazy wind, strong rain, and a boat that wasn’t getting power. We said a prayer that we’d be safe, finally got a hold of the rental people, wiggled some wires, and were finally able to get the boat back to shore. Turns out the boat had two batteries, but only one of them was switched on, so the rental people had to switch it to both so if one had an issue, then the other would take over. Crisis averted, though I don’t think a few of my nieces and nephews will want to go out on a boat again for a while. We stayed at the lake for about 3 hours. One of my brothers-in-law was brave enough to TRY wakeboarding, but ended up getting so cold he couldn’t hold on to the handle. There was NO way I was doing it. I did, however, have to get into the water to get out of the boat. We got the boat into shore, and as it turned out, we were in kind of a deep spot. I jumped out of the boat, only to go up to my chest in water, which took my breath away because it was SO frigid, and then i ran my legs as fast as I could to the shore, with my bag full of my camera stuff above my head so it didn’t get wet/ruined. Talk about an adventure! Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be recommending renting a boat again on our trips unless we’re somewhere warm. Like ever.

All in all, the trip was so fun. They are never long enough, and we always have a hard time saying good-bye, but it’s nice that we are able to get together when we do. I can’t wait until 2018, but hopefully it’s something a little warmer!! Until then here’s a few things I want to remember:

Derf Narts
American’s Familiest Fun Videos
Nardles
Wiggle-fishes
Almost dying on the boat
Almost dying in the cave while being crop-dusted by my sister, Jenny
The Hyperbole in a Half story—“MOOUNNNN! I want to go to the parpy!!!”

I love these people so much, and I’m happy that we get to be together forever. We may be a little crazy, but I like their crazy! 🙂