I Can Do This!: Bear Lake

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Bear Lake

Ryan has declared this past week one of the best of his life! We went to Bear Lake as a family (Ryan and me, Rara & Papa, and Marc & Frances, Alice & Claire). We stayed in Rara & Papa’s timeshare at Ideal Beach. We have stayed there before, and always had fun both at the lake and with all of the different activities on-site.

We drove up on Monday, stopping to enjoy ice cream and squeaky cheese at the USU creamery, as well as the Bear Lake overlook as we first started down the hill.

We went to the condo and unpacked, then immediately went to Merlin’s for burgers and raspberry shakes.

On Tuesday, we went to Minnetonka Cave. It was nice and cool, and was a welcome change from the heat.

We spent most of Wednesday at the beach and on the water. Papa rented a Waverunner, so we all had fun taking turns on that.

We also had a lot of fun on the beach. Ryan built a sandcastle, Claire and Alice sat in the sand, and Claire even sampled the sand!

Raspberry Days started on Thursday, so we spent a lot of the day enjoying the craft fair (where Ryan won some great prizes playing mini golf), pizza at Bear Lake Pizza, and the Raspberry Days parade. We found an AMAZING new favorite food – chocolate covered raspberries! I’m looking forward to Marc’s post on Frances’ blog about those!

Now, our Bountiful Handcart Days parade is known for the large amounts of candy thrown. But this parade far surpassed that prior candy record. As we lined up, we saw that all of the kids along the route were holding GROCERY BAGS! I grabbed one out of the car for Ryan, and he pretty much filled it during the parade. We have a year’s supply of Tootsie Rolls and salt water taffy!

On Friday, we spent part of the day at the beach again. It was a little more windy, so it wasn’t quite as enjoyable as Wednesday had been. But we still had fun. We took Cheerios for Claire so she didn’t have to eat the sand.

Friday night, we went to the Raspberry Days rodeo. (Thanks to Ryan for taking such a great group picture!) We enjoyed the traditional barrel racing, bull riding, and bareback riding, but were particularly entertained by the “mutton bustin’” and a new event where all of the kids are put into the arena and chase a calf with a ribbon on its tail. The kid who gets the ribbon wins 10 bucks. It was hysterical!

As previously mentioned, the Ideal Beach resort has a lot of activities we enjoyed throughout the week. One of Ryan’s favorites is the daily craft project. He made a great wooden car model. We also enjoyed swimming at the pool, miniature golfing, and walking around the area. We had a great condo with a great view this stay.