Family Photos - All 8

The boys are leaving. Who knows when we'll all be together again?

Here are a few of my favorites!

Day 11 - Imposters, sushi and the rain chain

At this point, we are eating so much yummy vacation food, we ABSOLUTELY MUST keep dropping on on local Crossfit classes. It's that, or buy new clothes to go home in....

Today....Hermes Crossfit! I always like this place. The are funny and welcoming. In fact, during this visit, Mark made a new friend! And then that friend asked him to take a picture of his bare butt to send to his wife, proving that her gift of an "anti-raspberry" ab-mat worked perfectly! 

You can't make this stuff up.

We leave for Moon Lake soon, so we wanted to make sure that we put up mom's rain chain. It was a gift from Me, John and Kaira...with the promise that we would install it when we came out. We grabbed a special drill bit from the store and Mark knocked it out in no time. He's so handy!

Works like a charm! I wish I could find a good spot to put one at our house.

With the rain chain up, we headed back downtown to find Kylie and her companion and take them to lunch.  We're not sure they'll be able to handle our coolness.

We met up and she led us through the super secret doors and tunnels that the missionaries and other "temple square elites" use to get around. We felt like spies.

We all had lunch at the awesome cafeteria in the church office building. It was crazy!! It was super inexpensive and had tons of options! She may have fibbed to several of her acquaintances when she introduced us as her family...but we sure love her like a daughter!

She took us all over temple square and gave us little snippets of history and tour talking points.

Everly got the deluxe tour package.

It was fun to listen to the information that they share with their tours. Kylie has learned so much and we're so proud of her!

Soon is was time to say goodbye and let her get on with her day. We had promised Megan we would go back to the big Deseret Book store to let her play the piano...she goes through withdrawals when she can't play for several days in a row. The rest of us wandered about and looked at the books.

We were hoping to catch Seth (Jim and Ameli's son) and say hi before we had to drive back, so we killed a little time riding scooters around the block. The big kids got to go on their own, but we took the little for rides too.

We dropped all the kids back in Spanish Fork for the evening and then came right back up to meet Jim and Ameli and Mat and Lori for dinner at their favorite sushi place, Takashi. It was such a cool restaurant.

I was so grateful they had non-sushi options! It was so delicious and the rest of them were happy dining on raw fishies...I did my best to seem worldy and open-minded...it's hard to do when I really prefer tater tots.

I am so grateful I got to know these guys better. They are so fun and it feels great to be more connected to Mark's side of the family.

Day 5 - Bear Lake floating trampoline, freezing at the beach and Mortal Pongbat

I really don't know if it's possible to wake up in this beautiful place and NOT take a photo every single day. 

Is there anything better than a big pile of shoes in a home filled with people you love? I think not.

Mathew's running poker game goes strong with willing uncles and siblings.

The day promised to be pretty chilly, but that will never stop a Hufford brother from having fun with his other Hufford brothers.

Big Mat rented a floating trampoline for us to use and so we ferried the kids back and forth to jump. It was chilly and fun. and the fear of falling off of the paddle board into the water kept me off for most of the day.

My kids were certainly entertaining thoughts of how lame I was for just hanging out on the beach trying to wrap myself in any available towel, tablecloth or discarded t-shirt for warmth. If I made a little cocoon and laid myself perfectly flat on the beach, it was mostly bearable.

The marina is closer to the small grocery store, so I popped over to get a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs. I couldn't believe my eyes....Pistachio Yak! For sale! These Utahns and their Cafe Rio and their Grandma Sycamores and their commercially produced "salads". Such abundance.

Back to the beach to shiver and look for mini shells.

Megan and Otis in his baby bjorn

Mathew braving the cold air on the boat...he's always been adventurous on the water!

Me and m' baby

We eventually decided we'd head back to the cabin for some down time.

It didn't take long for the teenagers to claim their napping real estate.

John and Shannon made a huge pot of skyline for dinner. It was SOO delicious. I inhaled this plate in under 2 minutes.

This is the stuff.
Sunshine and pups and guitars and doing nothing in particular.

In this environment, genius has a chance to spread its wings.

Mortal Pongbat is born.

The loser "faces" the firing squad.

Nearby, Everly and Brooklyn tried to fuse these two water bottles with a wrench. They were determined to make it happen.

Lori made s'mores in the oven. Genius EVERYWHERE!

We took a break from Mortal Pongbat and s'mores to go in search of the legendary raspberry shakes of Bear Lake. Per Madison's recommendation, we settled on Merlin's.

They get immediate coolness points for their money ceiling.

And the raspberry shakes were definitely delishioso.

Oy. The mustache.

Full bellies, tired bodies, sun-burnt faces, new memories, mustache men. Burned into my memory.

It's a boy!

Sarah and Tom adopted Simon! He is the missing piece of their family and so we all got together to celebrate and dance the night away!

And we got bonus quality time with Grandma Jean and Grandpa Joe.

Cooking with Grandma helps grow happy pups.