Bear Lake 2009

Everyone in our family looks forward to our annual Bear Lake trip. Micah's parents are so generous that every year they rent us all condo's so we can relax and spend time together. The cousins love running around together, and the adults love just being away from it all. Between Micah's parents and siblings family's we are starting to be quite a crowd.

Here we are on our way to Bear Lake.  I apologize for the tremendous amount of pictures in this post. I just couldn't cut any more out because I love them all.

She thought the ear phones were so great we couldn't take them away from her even when she was asleep. Aliza loves anything that she can do like the big kids.

I may be crazy, but I love this picture. I won't be able to put Aliza in this kind of swimming suit for much longer, so I'm loving it while I can.

Spending hours building sand castles is one on our favorite things to do.

Micah started the kids building sand snakes last year, and they still loved it this year. I do have to mention that Micah and his brother David are more into the sand castle building than the kids. Give them a shovel and a bucket and they are set for the whole day.

David this year made this fantastic bottle launcher.  Each cousin was able to decorate a plastic bottle with stickers and markers, and then launched it high into the air.

It was so much fun to watch each of the kids pump the launcher up with air and then watch it fly. He spent many hours on his invention and it was a hit. Thanks Dave!

I think we all love to spend as much time at the beach as possible. I was a little nervous about this situation in the above picture, but I was watching closely and standing close by to make sure Aliza didn't get dunked. Her cousin Zaylie was pulling her around and sure enough I turn my back for a second when all looked well, and she flipped over into the water and was stuck under the floaty. She didn't think that was very fun to be stuck in that cold Bear Lake water. What a great mom I am :(

I don't know how the kids could just float around all day in that cold water. It didn't seem to phase them at all. Oh, to be a kid again. I'll stick to hanging out on the beach.

A few years back we started the tradition of the annual "Bear Lake Phillips Family Talent Show". This is a picture of Abbie "the announcer" for this years show. We had everything from official programs, dancing, sword fighting, unicycle riding, and quite frankly just a lot of laughs. My favorite number for the evening involved a dance from all the mom's (not to be biased because I was involved). I still laugh sooo hard when I even think about it.  We all wore swimming suits over our clothes and did a syncronized swimming number behind a blue table cloth (water of course). I do have the video but I haven't figured out how to edit it. So don't worry ladies, it will be on here soon. Ha Ha!

This is a picture of one of the dance numbers.  It was to the music of "SpaceMan."

Between miniature golf, two pools, a treasure hunt (thanks to Grammie), and the beach we had a very full four days. We even lucked out that we were there for the Fourth of July fire works show. 

This is Aliza with her cousin Taylor whom she adores.

This is the whole crew of cousins ready and lined up to do the pinata. This is everyone from youngest to oldest excluding Taylor from the above picture, and the newest member of the Phillips family Shad (4 months old). 

After we gathered up all the goodies it made a great hat. Avery was still in a dress due to the talent show. 

We can't wait until next year! In fact Avery has such a sweet, tender heart that when she even thinks about Bear Lake she starts to cry and says she wants to go back. She loves her cousins so much and I'm so glad we could spend time together. We have a great family.  Thank you Gene and Karen for a fantastic vacation.