Weekend at Bear Lake 2024

Last weekend featured the annual family trip up to beautiful Bear Lake, along the Utah/Idaho border. It was good to get away for a few days and to enjoy some 15-to-20-degree cooler temperatures to escape another long, hot summer, to boot.

A house filled with 26 of us running around was sometimes-chaotic, but it was  never boring. We had the Summer Olympic Games from Paris keeping us glued to the TV much of the time. There were card and board games frequently taking place. Some of us also spent some time at the beach ... go figure. (When in Garden City. ...)

Like last year's trip, "Jack Box" games kept us entertained on more than one night. (I'm not sure who drew the cartoon of Donald Trump on this T-shirt during "Tee K-O," but it amazed us all.)

Vacation time always means more time with the nieces and nephews, and Fun Aunt and Uncle were there for it. The nieces especially love JB.

I need to brag a bit more here about JB, because she captured this phenomenal sunset on one of our nights up at the lake:

My siblings and I took turns providing the meals for everyone. JB and I (let's be honest, she does most of the work, like always; my job is standing in front of whichever cabinet or drawer she currently needs access to) provided the ingredients for tacos and taco salads. We also had pizza, sandwiches, pasta, and assorted breakfast items.

This was our first annual trip without Mom. We felt her absence. But we also know she was with us in spirit and would've wanted the family fun times to continue.

Weekend in Midway

JB and I have now made it a whole year as a married couple!

To celebrate our first anniversary together, we went out of town for the weekend to stay at the lovely Zermatt resort up in Midway (our original destination for our honeymoon before I got laryngitis and JB injured her back). While we were there, we also ventured to nearby Park City to tour the Utah Olympic Park, which was one of the highlights of the trip for us both.

The Olympic museum contains many interesting and interactive displays, including this game in which we had to balance a marble on its downhill skiing run:

Outside, we took a look at the snowboarding jumps:

After this, we went on a guided tour of the bobsled, luge, and skeleton runs farther up on the hillside via bus.

At the top, we got this eagle-eye view of the ski jump:

It's a heckuva view, and it was mind-boggling to think of the many athletes who have run these courses with a level of fearlessness I do not possess.