Bear Lake - Monday

I LOVE BEAR LAKE!  This year for our Ashton Family Vacation, we tried someplace new.  We drove about 3 hours away from home, and stayed here:

But the majority of our time was spent here:

This place is perfect.  Perfect for little kids because it is so shallow, and perfect for parents because... it is so shallow.  There may not have been waves and boogie boarding, and night time swimming like our traditional Oceanside family vacation... but with 7 little kids to watch over... I opt for NOT having a heart attack every 5 seconds.  I really don't know how my parents did the ocean every year.

It was fun to watch the babies get comfortable with the sand and the water... and sharing.

If we wanted to, we could actually watch all the kids (except the babies) from the comfort of our chair.  That's what I call a relaxing vacation.

Getting brave and going deeper...

Brynnlee's not sure why Daddy finds it necessary to accompany her this far out.

Then she lost her footing and fell down.  Here comes Miss Grump.

Back to the shore she goes.

Here's Kaylee enjoying a nice drift in the car while eating some lunch.

She's so cute, I can't stand it.  :)

Here the boys said they were "rowing out to sea."

Look how in sync they are!

I don't think a day goes by where Brynn isn't trying to walk around in someone else's shoes.

Hangin' with the girls.

Kaylee is on Julianne's lap.  Yes, she is here too. :)  We were only missing Bryce.  Bryce was in North Carolina having orientation before starting up his first semester at Duke.  We missed you, Bryce!

This is Bradley's smile when he is super happy.   Or if he has a booger he is trying to gross you out with.

The first day here, Jaden said he caught a fish with his bare hands.  He put it in a cup with some water and named it Sparky.  I thought Sparky was an appropriate name for a fish that could do tricks such as "play dead" so well.  They decided to dig Sparky his own little pool.  Pool... grave, what's the difference?

Kaleb was a good helper.

Well I don't see a booger on his tongue, so he must have just been really happy here.

Ethan was also there to lend a hand to make Sparky comfortable during his post-life.

I was surprised how long the babies lasted out there without a nap.  After about 6 hours, the sand and sunscreen in their tired eyes was our cue to call it a day.