We took an end of summer camping trip to Bear Lake. We booked the campground before Alyssa even expressed an interest in tennis, but by the time the camping trip rolled around, she was full swing into her tennis season. As a result, Danny had to head out on the camping trip with the three younger kids without us so she could be here for a tennis match. We headed up there the next day, but they managed to do a lot of stuff without us in that time. The explored all of the amenities of the campground(this campground had a lot of super fun stuff)

The Big Picture Perfect Rocking Chairs

The miniature golf course

The playground

The giant jumping pillow

The swimming pool

They also went to our favorite raspberry shake spot.

On Friday, they headed up to the North Shore Beach. They took the canopy, lunch, sand toys, and life jackets and made a fun day of it. 

They were surprised to find this food truck(or maybe I should say boat) out on the water.

Alyssa and I arrived at the campground about the same time that they got back from their beach day. We enjoyed the evening together and lit a campfire to enjoy after dark.

The next morning, we rented a boat. Alyssa has a bit of a fear of deep water, so we let her stay behind in the trailer. The other three loved our boating outing.

We rented an inter tube with the boat and they all had fun going out on it. Danny and I even tried it once each. 

The boys got a bit cold by the end and curled up under blankets on the front bench seats.

That afternoon, we took the kids to this adventure park. The girls wanted to try out the ropes course.

Ashley got a bit scared up there and didn't last as long as Alyssa.

Her favorite crossing was these platforms that swung back and forth. She is sitting on one of them in this picture.

The boys got to go down this huge slide 7 times each.

After the adventure park, we went back for more raspberry shakes and then another campfire night. We headed back home on Sunday. It was a fun weekend. We want to go back here again. The only down side is that Garden City does not have any public tennis courts and Alyssa really wanted to go play every day. We were also quite jealous of our neighbors who had a private patio with a hot tub and grill. Next time we want to book that campground.

Day trip to the Mountains

 We were going to do a camping trip midway through July, but some stuff came up and we had to cancel the camping trip. Instead, we took a day trip up the high Uintas. We started with the lofty lakes hike. I knew it was going to be on the difficult side for the boys and Ashley, but I thought that if we took it slow and took breaks by each of the lakes, then it would be doable. The kids were troopers and the scenery was beautiful.

It was quite a climb up to the highest elevation of the hike, so we stopped to enjoy the view(and the snow) for a bit.

Ashley kept begging to go swimming in one of the lakes, but we knew that would make things uncomfortable for her afterwards, so we promised her a trip to a lake after the hike so she could swim.

After the hike, we were all hungry, tired, and hot. So we found a place to have a picnic. We didn't take pictures, but it really wasn't the best picnic location. Not super pretty and right next to a dirt road that cars kept driving past us on and kicking up a dirt cloud over us. We didn't stay there long. After lunch, we found Ashley her promised swimming spot. I think it is called Trial lake. The sun was going in and out from behind the clouds and it was a bit breezy. So even though Tyler got in his swimming suit, he only dipped his feet in the cold water before deciding he wasn't going all the way in. Ashley was another story though. She loves lake swimming.

After dragging her away from the lake, we started our drive back down Mirror Lake Highway. We stopped at the waterfall off of the side of the road.

After the waterfall, we continued on our drive and made one last stop at Fairy Forrest. We had stayed in the campground here a few years ago and the kids were excited to go back and see Fairy Forrest again. We found this rock that Camden was excited about, since it had his name and birth year on it.

After returning to civilization, we found dinner at Panda Express. We took it to a park to eat it since the restaurant did not have it's dining room open. We tried to head over to the Dairy Keen for shakes after dinner, but the drive thru line was out of the parking lot and halfway down the street, so we just headed for home instead. It was a fun day and nice to escape to the fresh, cool air of the mountains for a day.

Miner Family Reunion-Estes Park Colorado- June 30-July 4

We felt so fortunate this summer to be able to go to Estes Park, Colorado for our Miner Family reunion. We all doubted that the restrictions of COVID-19 would lift enough by the first week of July to allow 47 of us to gather together in one cabin. We also worried a bit about how much we would expose Mom and Dad to the virus since all of us were traveling in from different parts of the country. However, the wonderful staff of the YMCA Camp of the Rockies allowed us to gather, as long as we didn't have more than 50 guests. It was amazing, after being in lockdown for 3 months, to be able to gather with the Miner clan. the kids enjoyed exploring around the cabin, and being with their cousins.

One day, we found this deer underneath our outside deck. It didn't seem to be too concerned about how close we all were to it. It was more worried about the people walking on the deck above it.

Alyssa was thrilled to be included with her older cousins at this reunion in their late night games and "hang outs."

The highlight of Miner Family Reunions, and this year was no exception, is Grandma's(and Grandpa's) Bingo. They got to gather and play before dinner on three different nights. 

Grandpa always calls out the letters/numbers, and Grandma sits near the prizes.

On one of the days, we decided to go as a group into Rocky Mountain National Park. We picked a super easy trail so that Grandma/Grandpa and the littles could all handle it. After we decided on the meeting place and everyone new what hike we were doing, we headed off in a big caravan. Our car was in the lead. After getting through the park entrance, we all got a little separated, so we were grateful to know which trail head we were heading to. We even felt fortunate to grab the last parking space in the lot where the trail head was located. We took our time putting on sunscreen and gathering our stuff since the rest of the group would have to park in the shuttle lot and take the shuttle to the trail head. We found a bench and settled down to wait. 

Well we waited, and waited, and waited. After about 20 minutes, Danny and I decided on a time when we would stop waiting. We thought, another 15 minutes was reasonable. Well 15 minutes came and went and no one from the group of 40 something people showed up. Of course, cell reception was sketchy, so no one was receiving texts or answering phone calls. We didn't know what happened to everyone, but Danny was done waiting, so he headed off with Ashley and the boys while Alyssa and I waited for 10 more minutes. It got quite frustrating waiting for shuttle bus after shuttle bus arrive with no one we recognized on them. Alyssa and I hiked quicker than the others, so we were able to catch up to them about a mile into the hike. We were supposed to hike to this waterfall and shortly into the hike, I noticed that the trail split- one way lead to the waterfall and the other lead up to 3 different lakes. Because Danny was ahead of us, he didn't realize that our final destination was the waterfall and we didn't want to make them turn around, so we hiked to the lakes instead. After all, our group was probably to the waterfall and headed back by this point. We enjoyed the hike and the lakes were beautiful. After we caught up to Danny, Ashley, and the boys, Danny and Alyssa pushed on to the final lake and I stayed with the others, with the 2nd lake as our turn around point. The kids did really well after getting over the disappointment of not getting to hike with their cousins. 

After getting back to our car, we were starving so we ate our lunches. As we were driving back down, we drove through the parking lot of the trailhead before ours and found a couple of families from our group. They were done with the hike and headed back to their cars. Most everyone was headed back to the cabin except for a few die hards who were headed up to do the trail that we had just finished. So we headed back to. We had a reservation to go roller skating and our girls were hoping to talk their cousins who are the same age into going with them. In talking to many different people, after the hike(and after my anger and frustration at being separated had gone away), we learned that there were two trailheads that went to that waterfall. Whoever had picked out the hike and trailhead realized after getting into the park that it was the other trailhead that we wanted to hike from. But because we had gotten a parking space in the lot up above, we weren't on the shuttle to see members of our group directing us off of the shuttle at a different trailhead than the one everyone was told. And sadly, I don't think most of the group even realized that we weren't there until everyone got to the waterfall and looked around. We ended up having fun on our hike even if we weren't with the rest of the group.

There were a number of activities that one could reserve and participate in at the YMCA Camp. Some of the ones that we chose to do included swimming, axe throwing, an escape room, the game room(with pool, ping pong, shuffleboard, cornhole, and fooshball), and roller skating. Everyone had fun in whatever they participated in. It appears, we only got pictures of the roller skating.

The boys didn't last very long, maybe 30 minutes. The girls did a little better. Alyssa even got off of the roller skating walker by the end. 

On the last night we were there, we decided to go out to dinner with Mom and Dad, their kids and spouses. Because of the restrictions, we couldn't have tables larger than 8, so we had to split into 2 groups, even with limiting the number of people that could come with us to that many. 

There was one more thing that was happening a lot at this reunion that was different from others was the one wheelers that David's family brought. I didn't get a picture or video of anyone doing this, but there were all kinds of people riding them, or trying them out. This is what they look like. You ride them kind of like a snowboard, and they could go pretty fast on them(up to 35 miles per hour, I think).

It was a fun reunion. We were all really sad when it was over. After we all got home to our various locations, we learned that nobody got sick from the gathering and the traveling before or after. We are so glad that it worked out with the pandemic.