Bear Lake - Day on the Beach

We were able to sleep well last night. Peter was a bit mean, but I know it was better than sleeping in a tent with him would have been. After NODP were all awake, we headed to Rendezvous beach.

It was delightful to watch Peter play in the sand. He'd barely fill that bucket with even a small shovel full before he'd empty it out.

There was nice cloud cover at the beginning of the day.

Owen and Daniel were excited to go out in the water, but quickly decided it was too cold.

Daniel warming up after his first dip. A body-less head, still wearing his floaties.

Mel helped be my eyes keeping track of the little kids.

Then the sun came out and we moved to the shade. I put a little hat on Peter, and was happy he kept it on for a little while.

He's just adorable.

Owen playing with the beach toys.

Poor kid, his swimming trunks kept falling down in the back. He was a true beach bum today.

Daniel went out into the water again, then warmed up again.

The warm up was faster after the sun was shining. Peter was adorable, I was so happy he wore his cute little hat.

We did our best to make sure the kids had plenty of sun block to protect them. Sunblock is also good at holding on to dirt. Which is why Peter soon had a unibrow.

We wiped him off several times, and then would re-apply the sunblock, then he'd get messy again, wipe off, reapply, repeat. Messy boy.

I tried to get him to take a nap. He said nope.

There was a big group at the campsite next to us, looked like a big family reunion. They were nice to let our kids play with them, cause they were finding lots of cute little frogs.

One of the mom's told me that at their peak the had 14 frogs in their little frog pool.

All the girls and little boys went to join in the frog hunt.

And they each took at turn holding the frog (when we were lucky enough to find one that wasn't too jumpy)

Cute little guys.

Mel! It's not a frog! It's a prince! Kiss it! Kiss it!!

The grandpa of the family reunion group next to us spent a good part of the morning making a big wet pile of sand. Then later he got out two bags of supplies and was making a killer sandcastle.

I tried to call Owen over to get out of the way as they took family photos next to their castle. Owen might have been in a few shots though. I got him close enough for me to take one and hopefully they got one or two without him. Some future family historian of theirs is going to be like "Which grandkid/cousin is that?"

 Then he joined in on their "storming the castle"

The matriarch of their group told me that they make the castle every year, and then let the little kids tear it down. When they used to leave it up, it would usually be broken by wind or strangers anyway, so now tearing it down is part of the tradition. I think that would be a fun tradition to have. I shall need to get good sand castle building supplies. It was around that time that Peter fell asleep in my arms. 

I was able to successfully transfer him onto a towel, yay.

 

He slept for over an hour. He slept through a pretty good windstorm, I stayed by and protected him as best I could. Owen came by and said he was tired.

Daniel had fallen asleep in a chair in front of me, I moved D over by O and P, and they all continued to sleep until Lily came and grabbed the towel off of Peter.

Which was about when I thought "I should drive back to the room now, so that they will wake up and then they will all go to bed at a descent time tonight. So that's what we did. We left early before dinner, and had a dinner of apples and one zebra cake back at the room. They watched Megamind.

Then P wanted to be held, so I gave him a bath. I started a load of laundry and got P clean, and changed O and D into clean clothes, which was when they all unlocked the back door and went to the sand volley ball court...

and buried themselves in sand. 

Oh well. I'm not doing baths again.

Hopefully there won't be too much sand in his hair.

My silly yoga baby.

I guess don't care if they get these pillows and sheets get sandy or have dirty feet on these carpets. After an hour of watching them out there, I did want to go back inside. I had foolish high hopes of practicing violin, reading a book, or blogging (exercising is not on my radar for a few days). I needed a bribe to bring them in. Lily was asleep too, I needed something to wake her up. We went to the car to go buy some famous raspberry shakes. But D started freaking out that he didn't want a shake. He probably wouldn't really care, but I decided to go by a little local grocery mart instead and got ice cream there. It was closer. Moose Tracks Ice Cream. Back at the room, Peter laid on his wrath when I wouldn't let him hold his own cup. I chased him around the room trying to feed him spoonfuls and he just yelled at me.

"Must... get... as far away.... as possible..." as he squeezed himself between the dresser and the bed. I gave in.

And he couldn't do it. Peter, this is why I was trying to help you. He got mad when I cleaned it up and wouldn't take any more. They watched another movie and then it was dark enough that I was able to put them to bed. We paused it to brush teeth, then they went to bed around 10:40. So that was our day. MHWAS are camping tonight, and I'm at the Worldmark Hotel with LNODP. I'm glad that they are all asleep. I've spent several days wanting to get caught up on the blog, I'm two hours into this now and only got this post done. I was texting my little bro Neil for a little bit of the time - he might come up tomorrow, fingers crossed. That would be fun. Our kids love hanging out, and he also knows Mark's family too - they played soccer together and stuff since they both live in Layton. Anyway, that would be fun, and then I told Neil, hey, maybe we can go try and find Thomas Hibberts grave! I made a failed attempt when we were up here in 2014. I couldn't find them on the list back then, but find a grave says they are there. So tomorrow before he heads home, Neil and I are gonna go find them. Or I'll do it Thursday before I head back to SL. I just decided that on my way home, I'm going to go the Evanston route and go by and see where Ambrose, Sarah, and Mary Williamson are buried in Upton. Yay! That will be cool. Now it's almost 1 AM, and I guess I'll call it a day and hope I get to sleep in a little bit tomorrow. Oh, but I forgot to mention today is Hyrum's happy birthday! Sorry H. We did wish him a happy birthday, sorry I didn't take any pics of the birthday boy. I didn't bring him any presents up here, we'll celebrate when we're back home later this week. These kids keep getting older, Hyrum is starting his senior year. Crazy.