MightyJohnsons

Mom is Gone Survival Guide

Manina and Ellie are out being world travelers. Again. Last year in September they went to San Diego and then Alaska. This time they went to Disneyland and had a fun trip.

But while Mom and Ellie are out having a great time together, the rest of us in the family don’t exactly wallow in our misery waiting for their return. Sure, we miss them and we all recognize that our family is incomplete while they are gone. But, we do fun things and try to make memories of our own.

There have been trips away where things don’t go very well without Manina around to run the home. But, the kids and I worked together pretty well this time and it was pretty smooth. So, here are a few tips to remember for the next time that Mom leaves us to our own devices:

First, clear the entire schedule

I told Manina to drop everything possible when she left. No piano. No soccer games. No soccer referee assignments. Send RSVP regrets for birthday parties. Cancel everything that isn’t absolutely mission critical.

It was awesome.

It worked well because it gave us the time to do the other following steps in the survival guide. There is a reason I listed it as the first and most important item.

Second, don’t fret too much about the house

It is highly critical to make sure the house is clean and tidy when Mom returns. But, other than that last hour prior to her arrival, don’t worry about cleaning too much.

In reality, our kids are pretty good at doing their chores and being responsible. Our house remains fairly clean. Sure, backpacks and shoes might be left on the kitchen table. Drawers are sometimes left open. This isn’t a big deal. It’s not worth the energy to make sure the house remains as clean as when Mom is home. It isn’t a realistic expectation, so just let it go. It never gets too bad.

Third, dine out for dinner each night

I typically get home from work around 6pm. I’m hungry. The kids are hungry. The only real option is to go out to eat. Cooking makes too much of a mess (which is going to take even more energy to clean up), and I simply don’t have time to prepare and cook a meal.

One night, I had an appointment to fix my phone at the Apple Store in downtown Salt Lake City. I took all the kids with me and we went to Pizza Studio and had a contest on who could build the most delicious pizza. It was fun, and very easy to clean up, and it filled up our entire evening. (If you’re wondering, Megan lost. She ordered a pizza with unlimited toppings, but then only put on garlic, regular sauce, and cheese. I suspect she just didn’t want to answer the clerk’s questions about what other toppings to add. It was gross, but we all got a good laugh from it.)

Make sure the vacation budget includes the dining out costs for the poor souls stuck at home. It makes life much easier on the stay-at-home parent and also makes it easier to avoid spending too much time and energy cleaning up the house.

Forth, go outside and do fun things

In Utah we live very close to the mountains, so hikes and picnics are easy to pull off. But, for whatever reason, when Mom is around there is usually too much going on (see my first point) to do these things as a family.

One night we hiked around Silver Lake with some of my family.

Another night later in the week I told the kids that I was going to come home early from work and take them on a picnic into the mountains. I told them they had to have their homework and chores done and we could go up and sit around the fire all evening long. It worked out great. On my lunch break I picked up a few simple supplies and right when I got home we all drove up the canyon and found a picnic spot.

We ate hot dogs, roasted marshmallows, threw rocks in the river, lounged in my hammock and just wasted the night away. It was a lot of fun.

The great thing about this night was that was really a conglomerate of all of the survival guide steps.

I miss Manina when she is gone. Our home and family dynamic isn’t the same without her (and I don’t just mean the cleanliness either). It is very difficult being a single parent (even for just a couple days). I have all the admiration and respect to those who have to do it on a more permanent basis. These steps certainly made things go a lot smoother this time, but I was sure happy to have her home again.

Disneyland Adventure

My good friend Emily and I have been talking about taking our two youngest daughters to Disneyland for quite sometime. Ellie and Gwen are great little friends and both were thrilled at the idea of going on a trip to Disneyland together. Before you jump to conclusions, Ellie has never been to Disneyland. The rest of our family went when she was just a few months old and we decided it was best to leave Ellie with family. So instead of taking everyone back to Disneyland, we agreed that it would be okay for Ellie to go. Of course there were some “she is spoiled” comments, but for the most part, all of her siblings were excited for her to go.

We decided to fly instead of drive. Since it was just the two of us, it was fairly affordable and saved us two days of driving. Ellie and Gwen insisted on sitting next to each other on the plane while Emily and I sat on the other side of aisle. They were eating treats, writing in their journals and talking about Minnie Mouse the whole flight. It really was very cute.

We arrived around 1:00 in the afternoon and knew that we had two full days of Disneyland/California Adventure which meant very little beach time unless we did it the first day we arrived and so we headed down to Newport Beach (just like on our trip without her) and let the girls play for a while. I was really nervous. The waves were enormous and little Ellie doesn’t have much experience with waves. She fell over and got washed ashore more than once. She loved it though and kept asking to go back.

Afterward we went back to the hotel, got checked in, and then I took Gwen and Ellie down to the pool while Emily and her mom, Marva, who also came with us, went to the grocery store.

The next day, Monday, we planned to attend Disneyland (following the same itinerary as our family vacation). Emily loves to shop and she bought the girls super cute matching outfits for each day. Day one consisted of Elsa shirts, matching shimmery gold pants, and each of them had a cute Elsa braid in their hair. Their cute, sassy selves got more than a little bit of attention.

We started the morning off by meeting with Aerial and getting her autograph. I’ll be honest, I thought Ellie would be more excited to see all the princesses, but that wasn’t really the case. I probably waited a year too long to bring her to Disneyland. She was more excited to ride on all the scary rides than to see the princesses.

The park was busier than expected but thanks to Emily and her ability to plan everything perfectly, we were able to get fast passes for all the rides that had especially long waits. Megan told Ellie to ride the tea cups for her so all Ellie could think about was the tea cups. I know that secretly Megan wanted to punish me by making me go on that awful ride that goes round and round in circles. 🙂

Little did I know, Emily isn’t a big fan of rides. Her mother Marva, was a better sport, but still preferred watching on the bumpier rides. That left me to take the girls on most of the rides by myself. That was okay though. I wouldn’t have wanted to come if I wasn’t going to have some fun with Ellie on the rides. She loved everything magical about Disneyland. The Indiana Jones ride was the only ride that scared her, surprisingly. She love space mountain, roller coasters, you name it, but there was something spooky about the snake and boulder that freaked her out. She was such a good sport. Meanwhile, Emily want ahead and got us seats for the big parade. The weather was perfect, overcast and not too hot which made waiting in the lines bearable.

Round and round in the tea cups (thanks Meg!)

Ellie and Gwen mesmerized with main street in Disney.

Ellie looking excited BEFORE the Indiana Jones rides. She was far less excited when it was over!

This is one of my favorites! We had a blast shooting all the targets.

Autopia was definitely Ellie’s favorite ride. She has always loved driving but this was her dream. She was completely in charge of the vehicle. I won’t say it wasn’t a little scary but she did great and earned her license in the end.

We made it back to our hotel around 10:30 that evening. We filled the day with just about everything we could. We rode on a lot more rides and even made it to the evening parade before heading home. Ellie fell asleep, completely exhausted, in my arms on our way back to the bus.

Tuesday we went to California Adventure (just like before). Here are more cute matching outfits for the girls!

We had plans to attend Goofy’s Kitchen that morning so we could meet a bunch of characters all in one place. Truly, it was disappointing. It is probably my only regret of the trip. The restaurant was very expensive and there were only a handful of characters. We had to remind them several times to bring the characters by our table. Thankfully Minnie Mouse showed up, which made Ellie’s day. Mission accomplished.

After breakfast we made out way into the park. Again, we saw very few characters but it wasn’t a big deal. Ellie was just thrilled to go on the rides. I was told to take the girls on California Screamin’ while Emily and her mom got fast passes for the Cars ride. The girls were so excited. I am no daredevil so it is saying something when I am the brave one they send out with the girls on the crazy rides. When we got to the front of the line, they informed us Ellie was about 1/2 inch too short. She couldn’t go. She was devastated and started crying. I told Gwen I would take her but Gwen got less brave when I offered so we skipped it and headed to the ferris wheel. The girls thought it would be a good idea to pick one that swung…remind me not to do that again. We were all scared. 😦

We soon met back up with Emily and Marva and went on several tame rides. Then we headed to the Car’s ride. It was so fun. It was under construction last time we came. It was probably my favorite ride of the trip. Off to more rides. Of course, the girls insisted we do Tower of Terror. Emily would have nothing to do with it, so it was up to me to the girls. The ride doesn’t really scare me but I always feel a little woozy after riding those types of rides. The girls were so excited so I knew I had to do it. They were brave and although Ellie and Gwen both go nervous once they were on the ride, they did great. Afterward Ellie said, “Mom, I was scared because my butt kept lifting all the way off the seat!” That wasn’t the case for me, but I can imagine why that might be a little freaky to a five year old.

Next, Emily and I took the girls on a river rapid ride. We knew we would get wet, but it was pretty warm so we figured it would be a good thing. It was a blast! Ellie got the worst of it and I came in a close second, but we laughed so hard that it made it worth it.

We also went to the Aladdin play and a Frozen sing-a-long. Then off to souvenir shopping and more rides. We finished the night off with World of Color and made it back at a reasonable hour.

Ellie was pretty tired when we got back to our hotel. She asked if she could play the Ipad while I packed up our stuff since we were heading out in the morning. About fifteen minutes after I gave it to her, I found this:

She had fallen asleep with her finger still pressed up against the screen. I would say that pretty much sums it up. We were exhausted. We fit everything we could into two days at the parks. We had a ball – great friends, great bonding, and forever memories.

Fall colors Silver Lake hike 2015

We’ve done the Silver Lake hike a couple times. It’s fun to go back and look how much the kids have changed in just a few years, but while doing the same activity.

The first time we posted about this trip was back in 2008. Then, again in 2010 we had a memorable trip with Drew and some yucky V8 juice. Go back and look at some of the pictures from those posts for a real blast from the past.

Unfortunately, this time we were missing Manina and Ellie, who flew to California today to go to Disneyland. We missed having them with us.

So, I’ll spare the details of location, weather, etc. and get right to the pictures. Mainly, so we can look back at them in a couple more years and see how much things have continued to change.

It was a new experience having Jake drive us up the canyon.

Some things don't change; someone always gets mad. This time it was Drew because someone wouldn't throw him the ball. — Some things don’t change; someone always gets mad. This time it was Drew because someone wouldn’t throw him the ball.

We have a picture just like this from several years ago. Fun to see the kids change!

Diagnosis: MRI

SPOILER ALERT: Jacob is just fine. Totally healthy and nothing to worry about.

Jacob went in for his annual medical physical exam this week. He came out with some disturbing news.

We’ve been going to the same pediatrician for several years, and he’s always been a doctor we could recommend to others.

The doctor went through the usual battery of tests. He was wrapping things up and marking things down on Jacob’s chart and casually asked if there were any other problems.

Jake said, “Nope. I feel great.”

Then Manina jumped in, “Well, he does get some headaches…”

She then proceeded to tell the doctor about the (handful of) headaches Jacob has complained about (very rarely). The doctor jumped at the chance. He didn’t seem interested that the headaches Jacob experienced over the summer seemed to be the day after an all-nighter with his buddies, or after working out in the sun all morning and not drinking any water. He seemed in a hurry to prescribe some serious action: Jacob needed to get an MRI as soon as possible.

He was very insistent at the appointment, and he even called our home phone number an hour or two later to encourage us to get an MRI. You’d have thunk the doctor owned stock in MRI machines or had to fill some quota of referrals by the end of the month like a used-car salesman.

Unfortunately, that put us in a very awkward position as parents. We’ve never considered something to be wrong with Jacob, other than he typically doesn’t handle pain or discomfort very well. Yes, this caused us to misdiagnose a broken foot a while ago, but we were pretty sure his headaches were just that — headaches.

But, here we have a doctor pretty much insisting on an expensive procedure for a problem that was quite literally an afterthought. Should we? Or shouldn’t we? Is it a total waste of time and money? Could we live with ourselves if we didn’t do something now only to find out even worse news later?

With some serious reservations, we decided to schedule the MRI. We shopped around and went to Wasatch Imaging, where we wouldn’t get charged hospital prices.

They gave us back a shiny CD with a bunch of pictures of Jake’s head. Like this one.

Isn’t that a good-looking brain? At least we’ve learned one thing from this process—he does have a brain. His doctor, well, we’re still not so sure.

I wrote this entire post before the doctor phones us back with the results, I was that confident that this was a bogus diagnosis. But, yesterday the doctor got the images and he called us to give the good news: Jake is fine. There aren’t any huge tumors in the back of his brain causing occasional headaches. But, he does look like he has a sinus infection and should probably get plenty of rest and drink lots of fluids for the next couple days.

Canning Salsa

We have a little garden in our backyard. It’s just big enough for some tomatoes, Anaheim peppers, jalapenos, and zucchini. Remove the zucchini from this list and you have a pretty good start on the ingredients for our favorite salsa canning recipe.

It’s the end of August, so we are enjoying the annual harvest from our little garden. That means it’s time to make some salsa.

We’ve tried canning a few different salsa recipes, but our recipe comes from our neighbor and friend, Melissa.

We did about 19 jars last summer, but we ran out of salsa a few months ago. So, this year we’ve completed 24 quart jars. We shared our recipe and process so we can remember just how much work it is next year!

Ingredients:

80 tomatoes
5 onions
6 Anaheim peppers
5-6 Bell peppers
6 jalapenos
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cup Apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup salt
4 tsp Cumin

Directions:

First, clean and peel the tomatoes. Boil a pot of water that can hold a large strainer. Put the tomatoes in the boiling water for 60 seconds. Drain the hot water using the strainer and empty into a bowl of cold water. This makes the tomatoes easy to peel and keeps them from cooking too early in the process.

Peel off the skin, and then squeeze out the juice and seeds into the sink. Keep the “meat” of the tomato and put in into a large pot. Squeezing the juice out of the tomatoes will give you a nice thick salsa, but it’s a very messy process. We enlist all the help we can get.

Dice the remaining vegetables into small pieces and add to the pot with the tomatoes. Leaving some of the seeds from the jalapenos will make the salsa a little spicy. Wear gloves when dicing the peppers and especially the jalapenos. Add the remaining ingredient to the pot with the tomatoes.

Bring the entire mixture to a boil carefully. Don’t put the heat on too high, and make sure you stir often so the bottom doesn’t scald — it ruins the taste and is also very tough to clean.

Let simmer for two hours until the salsa is the thickness you like.

Put the salsa in warm jars and close with a lid. Bring a canning pot water to a boil. Boil the filled canning jars for 25 minutes. Turn off the heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Remove carefully. Then place on counter for 24 hours.

This recipe should yield about 6-8 quart jars of salsa. It mostly depends on the size of tomatoes you use. Our Roma tomatoes from our garden tend to be on the small side, so we double those. We also often supplement and buy seconds from local farmers.

We usually do a double batch. It is a lot of work and takes probably 4-5 hours from start to finish. As you can see, it’s a lot of work. But, just about everyone in the family can contribute, so it is something we can enjoy together. The best part about it is that we can all enjoy the delicious salsa for the next year.

Ellie is Headed to School

Kindergarten was a day away and I promised Ellie a date with Mom, anything she wanted. A girl after my own heart, she wanted to go shopping. We started the trip off with an outing to her favorite store, Justice. Keep in mind, this is not my favorite store. I went for her. I personally want to throw-up every time I see a price-tag in that place, but she could have pretty much requested anything and I would have given in. After getting her a cute over-priced tank top and a sweater, I let her pick a place for lunch. All of my girls love Zupas. I wouldn’t have expected anything different. She loves their fruit cups so Zupas it was.

After lunch, I needed to grab a few school supplies for the older kids so we ran in Walmart. She really wanted to get her nails done. I normally would oblige and quickly join her but due to time constraints, I just had her do it. She loved it! Afterwards, she wanted to finish off the date with Starbucks. Seriously, what is better than a frappacino (no coffee of course) from Starbucks. She may have gotten that from me too!

I felt a little sentimental and somber all day. I just enjoyed watching her as we went about our various activities. I know she is young but I think she could tell. She would grab my hand and look at me and say, “Don’t worry mommy, you can check me out anytime and we can go shopping.” I love her.

The day finally arrived. My baby is heading off to school. I am excited for her, I really am. However, the selfish side is me sad to see this day come. She is my last one. She is my little buddy. She is the one that has gone everywhere with me for the past couple years. She was always there and now she is growing up.

Growing up is good. And I see how excited she has been for this day to arrive. When I dropped her off at kindergarten, I warned her that might cry. I told her those were happy tears. I may have lied. I was sad. I was really sad. As she walked into Mrs. Beck’s class and waived goodbye, I saw another door shut. Just. Like. That.

Back to School 2015

School is back in session. Summer has come and go before we could even blink. The kids were really excited for school to start. I have kids at three different schools this year. Jacob is in 10th grade at Lone Peak High School. Megan is in 8th grade at Mountain Ridge Junior High, and Katelyn (6th), Claire (4th), Drew (2nd), and Ellie (kindergarten) are all attending Highland Elementary.

Following another tradition, we celebrated with our annual “Back-to-School” fashion show. The theme this year is “Begin to be up and Doing” (from Alma 60:24). We love the excitement that these traditions bring for the kids. Can you tell I am a big fan of traditions?! Each kid tried on three outfits and we all voted on our ballots and the winning outfit is what they wear on the first day back.

Here are the kids heading out to school on their first day. We have three different departure times (actually four with kindergarten). It is a bunch of craziness but we wouldn’t change it for the world.

Montana Wilderness Adventure

Yes, we just went on a great vacation to Bear Lake, but when we got invited to join the Bergeron family at their cabin in Cooke City, Montana we could not pass up on the opportunity. Mike and Penny were great hosts and tour guides. I can see why they love going up there so much.

Cooke City is a small town tucked in the valleys of the Beartooth mountain range just outside of the northeast entrance of Yellowstone National Park. To say that it is a beautiful and rugged place is an understatement on both accounts.

We didn’t get to stay very long, but we managed to cram in a bunch of awesome activities while we were up there. It was a last-minute, squeeze-in-a-last-vacation-before-school-starts trip, but it was probably the highlight of our summer.

Fishing

Nearly everyone who tried caught something.

Katelyn and Claire came out with Mike and I on an early morning excursion to Kersey lake. Katelyn caught one on her first cast.

Most were fairly small, but Claire caught a beautiful brook trout that we cleaned and took home later to cook over the fire.

We fished in the Broadwater river, but most of our luck was at Lake Kersey. It was great. We went one last time on Saturday night and took Jake, and he caught three decent-sized brook trout in just over an hour.

ATV Riding

We spent several days up in the nearby mountains on long ATV trips.

Our first excursion was up to Lulu pass. Mike and Penny brought up their RAZR, and there were 3 other 4-wheelers for us to use at the cabin. We piled everyone in and Mike drove his truck and hauled some of our gear.

We stopped at the top of the pass and set up a home base.

I found a nice spot for a makeshift shooting range and helped people shoot a .22 and a borrowed Sig Sauer 9mm (thanks, Dad!). We Mighty Johnsons are not exactly expert marksmen, but we can hold our own.

The kids hiked around, watched Mike fly his drone, and rode around the trails on the 4-wheelers. Some of the girls went along with Penny to an old abandoned mine to look for gold. They found some of the “Fool’s” variety, and a couple other cool rocks, but nothing to revive the old gold rush days.

On Saturday we made the excursion to Sheep mountain. It was a long ride with some technical sections, but we all made it just fine. Manina got to drive the RAZR on this trip, and I think she’s forever ruined on “plain ol’ 4-wheelers”.

The views from the top were incredible. We could see the beautiful lakes and spectacular terrain. It was pretty windy at the top, but that didn’t dissuade Mike from taking out his drone and capturing some awesome shots and beautiful footage. The kids stayed bundled up and huddled together for cover from the wind, but everyone enjoyed it.

Horseback Riding

Penny’s relatives run the Skyline guest ranch in Cooke City and were able to take us out for a horseback ride. We paid for the hour-long ride and it was well worth the money. Manina has long had a fear of horses, but I somehow convinced her to go for a ride. Jake and Ellie also wanted to come along, but the other kids were a little timid, so they stayed home.

Our guides Wyatt and Kimesa (both hard-core cowgirls) paired us up with our horses. Jake ride Trigger, a super old horse. Ellie rode Pawnee and totally showed her who was boss. Manina was on Bert and Seth got Bo. We rode around a little loop with some beautiful scenery and had more fun than we had originally expected.

Rope Swing

Friday afternoon was pleasant and warm. Penny heard rumors of a rope swing into the nearby Broadwater river from a relative who was visiting during a previous week. So, we set off to find it. We all got on the 4-wheelers, drove for a couple minutes, then hiked for a half-mile hike to the rumored spot.

When we got to the rope swing, Mike volunteered to go first to test the depth. The depth was fine, but the water was cold.

Megan was the only person who declined, but everyone else felt the cool, refreshing waters of the Broadwater. Most of us took several swings because it was just plain fun. The backdrop was spectacular too.

Just Hanging Out

One of the nicest things about Cooke City was that it is off the grid. We had to drive into town to the chamber of commerce building to get free WiFi. No cell signal at all meant we didn’t have the usual interruptions.

We enjoyed shopping around in some of the old stores when we went into town.

The kids played a lot of card games too.

The kids also spent a lot of time playing around in the creek behind the cabins, trying to catch some small fish. Jake and Megan also often rode the 4-wheelers around the nearby trails.

Going to Church

We packed up Saturday night and hit the road Sunday morning. We stopped by the LDS Chapel in Cooke City (it’s really just an old donated barn) for our Sunday services. It was a neat experience.

We weren’t the only visitors, so the place was packed. They almost had to put some people in the overflow — some plastic chairs setup outside in the dirt and grass. But, the talks were great and it was a good way to end our trip.

Special thanks to the Bergerons for sharing Cooke City with us!

How to vacation at Bear Lake

For our 2015 summer family vacation we went to Bear Lake. We are already talking about when we can repeat our great Bear Lake vacation, so I wrote a guide we can refer to when we do it again.

#1: Bring good friends

Three families (the Francis’, Forstners, and we Johnsons) stayed all week long. The Bergerons and Bunkers were also able to come up for a couple days and join us. Our kids had plenty of playmates, and it never got boring. There was always someone to play with.

Another benefit of good friends is the housing hookup. The Francis’ had access to several 2-bedroom condo units for the week, which worked out great. We all stayed in separate units, but we were close enough together to share meals — another fantastic benefit from having good friends along. The Francis’ made some spicy meatballs and rice, the Forstners contributed some pork sandwiches complete with coleslaw and pasta salad, the Bergerons hosted a bring-your-own-meat cookout. We made some imitation Cafe Rio salads and burritos. It was fun to all eat together, and even better was that we didn’t have to think about where our food was coming from.

#2: Spend several days on the lake

Bear Lake is beautiful. The water is clear and blue. The Francis’ and Bergerons both own boats, so the kids had a great time tubing, hanging on for dear life. When we weren’t on the boats, we were out on the beach. Bear Lake has plenty to choose from.

City beach is accessible off the main drag in Garden City. Good for a walk along the beach on a windy evening. Some days, the city will open the gates and let you drive down onto the beach, but otherwise you have to walk the several hundred yards out to the waterfront.

Midweek we decided to rent a couple hours on a lake trampoline at Epic beach. It’s a private beach where they rent jet-skis, boats and toys, and they let us set up on their beach for the day. The kids had fun on the trampoline, but two hours was plenty. One hour is probably enough.

Rendezvous beach is along the south side of the lake and was a great spot. The days we were there the wind and the crowds totally died down after 3pm, so it was a great spot. You can drive right down onto the beach, and there were nearby dumpsters and bathrooms which was handy. It’s a Utah state park, so there was a $10 entrance fee for the day, but it was clean and had nice facilities and was well worth it.

North beach was crowded but probably our favorite beach of them all. It’s on the north end of the lake across the Idaho border. The sand was super nice and fine and it was shallow enough to wade out for a hundred yards or so. The kids had a blast running out into the surf to see who could survive the longest.

The Forstners rented a wave runner at North Beach Rentals for a couple hours and they were kind enough to share some of their time. It was fun zipping around and giving rides.

#3: Haul up your own toys

We wanted to rent some kayaks and paddleboards to use at Bear Lake. We did a little bit of shopping around and found a local place (SUPrentalsutah.com) that would rent a bunch of toys for a week for the price of a half a day rental at most places on the lake. The only catch was that we would need to haul them up in a trailer we borrowed from the Rowberrys, but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

We rented a two-man kayak, a one-man kayak, two kids’ kayaks, and two stand-up paddleboards. They were used every single day. I was skeptical about the two kids’ kayaks, thinking that the younger ones wouldn’t be able to figure out how to steer and paddle. I was wrong. The kids picked it up amazingly quickly and had a great time out on the water.

Each day at the lake we would pull our borrowed 14′ trailer full of these toys right down onto the beach. It was easy to get the toys in and out of the trailer, which was also a good changing station and shelter once everything was emptied.

We also brought bikes, rollerblades, skateboards, and the Rowberry’s 4-wheeler (and still had plenty of room in the trailer). The bikes were a great idea since there is a very useful bike path through most of Garden City. It’s a small town, and it was much easier to get to locations on a bike rather than worrying about pulling the trailer.

There are only a couple substitutions I would make. First, I would have liked a bigger SUP board — we had two of the same model, and they were a base model. Also, a side-by-side (like a RAZR) would be better than a 4-wheeler. It would have been nice to be able to take more than one person out on the rides.

Shovels, buckets, and other sand toys were also well used and totally worth bringing.

#4: Explore places to eat

Bear Lake is famous for its raspberries. Nearly every shop in town sells a “world’s greatest” raspberry shake. So, try them all and see which place is your favorite. We tried Lebeau’s, Merlin’s and Quick-N Tasty. To spice things up a little, try some in some additional ingredients to counter some of the tartness of the raspberry. Raspberry-Oreo and Raspberry-Banana were two highly recommended alternatives.

Bear Lake Pizza was also a fun stop. We didn’t brave the Old Ephraim (a giant 28″ diameter pizza named after the famous grizzly bear), because it was cheaper to buy several large pizzas instead.

Our family also enjoyed breakfast at Crepes & Coffee. We shared five different crepes, but the winners were the Vegg Out (lots of vegetables), the Classico (ham, eggs, and cheese), and the Raspberry (of course).

We also went on a date to Cafe Sabor for some good (and quite affordable) Mexican food. Definitely worth a visit.

We loved trying all the mom and pop restaurants and drive-ins.

#5: Enjoy the mountains too

When the Bergerons and Bunkers came up, they stayed at the new Conestoga Ranch which specializes in “glamping” (glamorous camping). We visited them one night for a cookout and had a blast. It was up on the hillside overlooking the lake, so we had a beautiful view as we barbequed, played games, and roasted s’mores.

One day when the weather wasn’t ideal for a beach day (not uncommon at Bear Lake) we went for a hike in the Mountains. Only a couple miles up Logan Canyon there is an easy 1-mile loop hike to an old Limber Pine. It was a fun and easy distraction.

Jake and I went out and played a round of golf at Bear Lake Golf Course. It was a nice course and a fun diversion from the beaches for a couple hours.

We also took the 4-wheeler up into the mountains for some twilight rides. We didn’t see any wildlife but the views were incredible and the trails were plentiful.

So, there are five great tips on how to have a wonderful vacation at Bear Lake.

Watch Out! Jake is Driving!

Jake turned 15 in June. It wasn’t but a couple weeks later that he was bugging me to get his Driver’s Permit. Here in Utah you don’t drive, even with a permit, until you are 15. Then you can drive with your parent(s) in the car until you are 16. Once you are 16, have forty hours of driving under your belt, and have taken Driver’s Education, you can drive on your own.

He is well on his way to 40 hours. I am guessing he is already upwards of 15 hours now. If he is in the car, he is driving. I have been impressed with his desire to learn and to learn to do it right. I won’t pretend we didn’t have to nudge him often in the car with reminders (or should I say scream as loudly as I can to keep from crashing into the car in front of us), but he is really doing great. Many youth are intimidated by driving on the busy roads and although he was a little hesitant at first, he is getting more and more comfortable taking on these challenges.

Truth be told, Seth is a far better driver than I am so I always encourage Jake to drive with him. I figure to be the best, you have to learn from the best. I won’t pretend that I am not a little excited to have a third driver around here in the next year!