More Bear Lake Pictures

  When I first wrote about our trip to Bear Lake I only had the pictures off of my camera and they were almost exclusively the day at the beach.   I finally went though Thomas' camera, who had some of the campground as well.

Our Site

The kids made a "fence" with the tent stakes.  They had a lot of fun.

Breakfast and a little mischief 

And those pesky squirrels.  Did I mention that one of them ran of with half of Isabelle's abandoned breakfast?  I know that I told about them terrorizing the food box and my chocolate bar!

 I had forgotten until I went through the pictures that we had a flock of wild turkeys run through camp.  I didn't even know there was such a think still as wild turkeys.  At first there was just one, then I saw another and another.  I think there was seven or eight all together.  Thomas chased after them with his camera.  He got some pretty good shots, but they were on their way somewhere and didn't stop to pose.

 Once we were dressed for the beach, everyone was excited to get in the car.

This was how I made lunch at the beach.  Most of our stuff was being stored in the back of the van, so we had it all with us, except the plates. Amazingly only one of the pieces of bread fell on the ground. 







Isabelle is still talking about the trip and asking when we are going to go to the lake again.  I told we probably could next summer. 

Time Zips By

I can't believe that it is really fall already.  We have already done two weeks of school, and we started late.  On a normal year, we would be three weeks into school.  Despite that summer isn't quite over on my blog because I have things we did that I still need to write about! I am going to try and get those up here soon.  In the mean time, this is why I haven't had the time.

 It started with going to Bear Lake the week before I had to go back to work.  Because I wasn't used to working, I came home exhausted and didn't want to do anything.  Most of the camping supplies had gotten put away, but not everything.  I had no desire to clean.  The little energy I did have after completing the necessities went to taking care of fruit.  Part of why I don't like being a teacher is that school starts right when all of the produce comes on.  I am exhausted from working and come home to piles of rotting fruit.  We actually got quite a bit of fruit off of our peach tree.  This was our first real harvest.  Last year was our first fruit and we got a grand total of three peaches.  This year we had at least half a bushel. Pretty good for a little tree.  At the end of that first week of work (which was mostly meetings, we didn't have students yet,)  we left to go to Rendezvous.  I wasn't as ready to go as I wanted to be and then it took us three hours to do the hour and a half drive. It was almost 9:00 by the time we got there.   I will do a whole post on Rendezvous with all the exciting details.  We left Sunday afternoon.  Part of the problem with going to Rendezvous is that Thomas' Uncle Bob always come then.  I think this was the first year I have gotten Thomas to go with me since we were married.  (Why was it easier to get him to come when we were dating?) Part of why we came home Sunday instead of Monday was so that he could go visit Bob.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to go or not.  Thomas' mom had been working and was tired, so she wasn't going to stay very long.  We opted to ride with her.  Somehow when we are there we always get sucked into staying longer than we mean to.  As much as I enjoy pinocle, I didn't want to play it until midnight.  OK, it was only about 10:00, but I was trying to get into our new school routine.  Thomas really didn't get home until after midnight.  Monday was Labor Day.  I was going to can my tomatoes, but I decided that they were green enough, and there were enough close to ripe still outside, but not quite ready, that I could wait until the weekend.  The majority of the peaches did have to be done that day.  Isabelle wanted a pie and a fancy candle lit dinner.  We told here we would do it the next day.  We did get everything ready though.  My sister Jennae wanted to do something, and we were supposed to go to Thomas's grandma's for a BBQ.  I really didn't want to go since Tuesday was the first day of school.  I was glad when it got canceled/postponed until Sunday.  We ended up buying fried chicken, making a quick salad and taking it down to Barnes Park.  It was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed visiting.  My parents stopped in on thier way home; they were still pulling the trailer and everything.  My brother also came with his daughter.  Tristan loved the ducks.  We had some rolls that he kept wanting to go feed them.   In the evening we just relaxed and tried to prepare mentally for school to start.

Isabelle was so excited for school to start.  She had been asking about it all summer.  The first day, they didn't have class, but they did have a parent meeting.  I of course couldn't go because I was doing my own first day of school.  I made arrangements to meet her teacher the Friday before.  She seemed really nice, and I think that Isabelle will like her.  Thomas took her to the meeting and was in charge of both the kids that day.  That evening as promised, we had a "fancy dinner." Mostly it was like an other dinner, except we dressed up the table and we had peach pie for desert.


Wednesday was her first day. Thomas dropped her off.  The two grandma's slit baby-sitting. When we asked her about it, she said she like school, but she didn't learn anything.  I kind of think she thought she would learn to read that first day.



When I got home from school, we headed up to Snowbasin for my cousin's wedding.  It was at the Needles lodge at the top of mountain.  You had to ride the gondola up.  We had to go just for the experience.  It was pretty amazing.  It makes me want to see it in winter, but I don't think I am a good enough skier to handle Snowbasin. 

View of the Valley

The bathrooms were supper nice.  The counters were marble,

and the toilets were gold plaited

In the Gondola

 
Thursday was supposed to be book club, and I was supposed to be in charge.  We ended up postponing it a week because most people had to go to back to school night.  I was relieved because I didn't know how I was going to get a dessert made and the house clean in time.   Friday I got the tomatoes pureed.  That made things easier on Saturday.  Thomas was supposed to help me make salsa, but he ended up having to work because another employee quit. The think about canning, is that it isn't nearly as hard as you think it is going to be.  It is however time consuming.  I had to cut up the peppers, let the stuff cook, boil the water for the canner, turn everything off and run to the store to buy lids, wait for everything to get back up to temperature, cook, then clean it all up.  It was about 5:00 by the time I was finished.  Of course a lot of that time was waiting.  I do love when the canning is finished.  The bottles look so pretty sitting there.  It gives me a thrill to hear each one pop.  We still need to do applesauce, which may or may not be all I do this year.

Sunday we went up to Huntsville to grandma Toombs.  It was fun, but again we got home later than I would have liked.  Partly because of everything we had going on we were pretty unsuccessful at getting or bedtime routine established.  The second week of school should have gone better, but it didn't really.  By Monday, Tristan had gotten a cold.  It made him kind of crabby.  I am not sure if it is related or not, but he also wouldn't go to bed.  At least he wouldn't go to sleep.  I would take him to bed, tuck him in, and kiss him good-night.  He would smile at me and lay there snuggling his blanket like he was going to go to bed.  Almost as soon as the door was shut however, I could hear him get up and start playing.  It was really cute listening to him talk to himself, but he did it until after ten, three nights in a row.  Thursday was the book club that had gotten postponed from the previous week.  Since it was our fist meeting of the year, we had to discuss our summer book and pick new ones.  The September meeting always takes longer than the others.   (Again I am planning on doing a separate post.  I haven't written about books in a while, and there are a couple I've been meaning to.) Thomas took the kids up to his mom's, and it was almost ten by the time they got home.   On top of all that I could feel myself getting Tristan's cold.  It wasn't bad, and I thought it would be mild.  Halfway through school on Friday however, it hit hard.  I was blowing my nose constantly, sneezing, and generally being miserable.   We were supposed to go clothes shopping, but we spent the evening laying low.  I haven't done much today either.  I am waiting for Thomas to get home from work, and then I will attempt the shopping.   I would really like it if things could be not so crazy for a while.  It is no wonder I can't believe it has been two weeks already. 


A note about pictures:  Apparenly some of the ones I was going to post here are not downloaded yet.  Our Tuesday night dinner and the first day of school are still on the camera along with Rendezvous.  There are also some posts that don't have pictures yet that did get downloaded and hopefully will be added soon  like Lagoon, bowling, and more bear lake.