Bear Lake 2013

Last July we went on a mini vacation with my family. We hope to make it semi-regular event! Even though miss Daphne was miserably sick (I have come to just expect her to be sick on vacations now, someday her sad immune system will get stronger!!) and the weather wasn't on our side, I have such fun memories of time spent with my family and look forward to going again.

Ready for our relaxing vacation to begin!

First attempt at hanging out at the beach at bear lake: Building sand castles in our "fort" in the pouring rain! It makes me laugh just to see the pic of what my entire family huddled into during the storm. Daphne kept on sneaking out not realizing it wouldn't be fun to brave the weather. She was so excited and happy to be at a beach!

The weather did clear up enough for Grandma to take Daphne to the water for a few minutes and she was in HEAVEN. She loved digging in the wet sand and covering herself and grandma with it.

We all had been looking forward to going to dinner at Merlins and it didn't disappoint! Rueben worked at a scout camp nearby for a few summers in high school and had been talking about a famous "Merlinater" burger for years. It is a 1 lb burger and if you finish it all, plus the drink and fries, you get your picture on their wall of fame. Rueben has a picture of himself on their wall from when he went originally, and we all had looked forward to Dan and Rueb adding a current picture on the wall.

The Merlinater- You can tell how big it is when you realize there are 3 full slices of American cheese spread across the top!

After dinner we headed over to rent some fun bikes. Dan and I went on one with my parents, and Rueben and Kamille road on these bikes where you are sitting low to the ground. I guess they are called recumbent bikes, according to google, haha, either way, they were way fun to ride! They let us all take a turn riding theirs.

We stayed in a condo all together, which was nice. We were able to make meals together, play games, and do puzzles.

Breakfast all together!

Fun picture taking outside some gift shops. The one of Rueb and Daphne in swim suits makes me laugh. She is looking at him like he is crazy instead of at the camera:)

 Another attempt at the beach....fun memories, but super windy! Who knew blowing sand could be so painful!

Us smart girls huddled under a blanket while the crazies played horseshoes in the wind. You can tell how windy it was when you look closely at Daphne's flying hair!

Crazy ones playing horseshoes

Below: What Daphne thought of our beach experience. Haha. She went through a phase of making this funny smirk and it always made us giggle.

Swimming at the pool with daddy and grandpa

On Monday, the weather was perfect! But we all were a little worn out of our beach attempts so we (minus Rueb and Kamille, unfortunately they had to be home for work that day) decided to explore Minnetonka Cave on our way out instead. It was such a fun place to tour and a good ending to a great weekend with family.