Bear Lake 2009

Going to Bear Lake is all about tradition!!!

We have to eat the same Bear Lake pizza the first night in town . We have to get Le Beaus Shakes, and only Le Beaus shakes…all the rest are knock offs. We OD on trail mix and hot tamales. We stay up too late playing games and try to sleep in…but don’t or can’t because of noisy little ones. We take naps on the beach and read book after book. We get burned by the bear lake monster. Eat too much food. Have dinner under the trees and want to do this same routine, over and over again, year after 37 years!!

Tradition!

Nothing tastes better than Grandma Sheri’s sandwiches on the beach at Bear Lake. Mom likes to set up a deli of sorts, and make sandwiches on command. My family actually doesn’t really like sandwiches at home….lunchmeat, tuna or peanut butter….but at Bear Lake it’s something we look forward to. When the boys were little, their sandwiches were always laced with sand and dried out before they were half way through. But now, after years of practice, we all eat quickly and expertly. I love chunky peanut butter and raspberry jam made with love by my mom, on the beach. Wayne opts for a creamy peanut butter, honey and sweet pickle sandwich. (This year, there is no honey ….so he is suffering) Laila begs for the crusts so she can feed the flock of seagulls.

What do we do at Bear Lake any way? We sit on the beach and read books and magazines. Tradition. I look forward to this and plan what books I’m taking and what I want to spend my days reading. We do take a boat and spend some time on the water and we rent Wave Runners for an afternoon…but really we read a lot. This is fine for the readers in the family which makes up about 80% of us….but 20% have a difficult time with our activity of choice.

Traditionally, we hit the beach early. Grandma Sheri, Laila and Preston head out by 9am to go and sit in the sun and play in the sand. I used to be there with my young boys when they were all awake by 7….now, Mom takes care of the little ones. We, the oldsters and the teenagers, all show up by eleven and are beach bums hour after hour. We then have to drag ourselves back to the condo at 6— and get the sand out of our swim suits, and clean up for dinner.

Tradition is what grounds us. Routine is good. Knowing exactly what is going to happen on vacation, with no surprises, is relaxing.

I’ve come to Bear Lake as a 10 year old child, a hormonal teen, a young married, a harried young mother with 4 screaming boys and a mother of sleepy teenagers. Now I’m on the other end of my 40’s peering into the unknown of 50. What I know is…..the Bear Lake family vacation experience is the same, and the only thing changing is me.

Bear Lake Top Ten

10. Eating dinner under the big Cottonwood trees

9. Sitting on the beach, reading.

8. Raspberry shakes at LeBeaus

7. The Hot tub

6. Morning walks

5. Staying up too late watching DVD's and playing games

4. Boating and Wave runners

3. 4:00 in the afternoon wind gusts

2. Hauling chairs to the beach, to the truck, to the dinner circle and back to the truck.

1. Family togetherness-- all sleeping and snoring under one roof!