A Gathering of Blacks

I'm sadly behind on blogging about our trips.  We didn't have internet access in our apartment in Colorado, so I had some of them written out by hand to type up on here later.  I was kind of feeling over it and willing to just let it all slide, but Justin likes having the record of what we've done and where we've been so he's been asking me to catch up with these.  I think we hope that someday Vivian will care about these posts.  Even if she doesn't, I'm going to spend the next few posts "catching up" so if it seems like I'm writing blogs about stuff that happened several months ago, it's because I did, but I'm just now posting them!

So here we go, back to late June, shortly after Justin and I took the trip to Twin Lakes, I was finally starting to feel better.  So, Vivian and I said goodbye again to Justin and left for Utah to join up with my parents and siblings for our little Black family reunion at Bear Lake, Utah.

That drive from Colorado is long and boring alone, but Vivian has discovered words, and she is quite good with them (sometimes to my embarrassment).  She stayed awake the majority of the drive chatting incessantly about her dad, snow and mountains that she observed through the window, animals, things that belong to Vivian, but mostly her current mood, which is generally communicated to me as "Vivian's happy."  That did rapidly degrade to "Vivian's not happy, Vivian's sad!" When she discovered that her sippy cup of milk was empty and could not be refilled.  Eventually she contented herself with water and reported back her renewed happiness.  She's turning into a great roadtrip partner, even from her rear-facing backseat position.

We arrived in Orem a few days early, which was nice to get a little break from the car.  Then Sunday, after church we left to meet everyone at Bear Lake.  Some of us camped, but everyone with kids elected to stay in the Timeshare.  Vivian and I were being housed with the Hexbergs.  Since Vivian spends a fair amount of time with them during drill weekends, this worked out great.  She was pretty stand-offish with everyone less familiar, but she has a long-standing admiration for Winnie, loves to boss Fox, and will follow Sarah around as though she is tethered to her with an invisible leash (even when I'm there and we're just visiting.  She loves Sarah.)

The first night there everyone just got settled in and had dinner on their own.  The next morning we met up on the Utah side of the lake.  The beach there is not crowded, but required a wade across a shallow area to reach the sandbar/beach/lake on the other side.  We spent the afternoon there, with people displaying varying degrees of judgment when it came to sunscreen, hats, and hydration.  I left with the tops of my feet painfully sunburned, but there were several others who probably wished that it was just their feet that were burned.  (I also forgot the memory card for my camera that day, so I ended up with no pictures.  Sorry.)

I left the beach early to drive to Logan to take advantage of our proximity to my doctor and get a little check-up on number two.  I left Vivian behind playing happily in the sand, and seemingly unaware of my departure.  I returned later that evening to meet up with the family at a park for dinner and games.  Unfortunately, Vivian is still too little for most group games, but the playground equipment was screaming her name.  I spent most of the evening on a bench with Devon, watching Vivian and Colton alternate between an interest in the slides and the dirt and rocks around them.  All the while cringing a little each time I heard Vivian shout "back off" at Colton.  It's a new phrase she acquired from yours truly.  Thankfully the novelty of shouting that at anyone who gets within 3 feet of her has worn off...mostly.

The next day we headed into Idaho to Minnetonka Caves.  The campers in the family weren't feeling it, so they remained behind, as did Devon, with a sick kid.

Outside of the cave entrance.  It's a really beautiful area.

There were something like 800 stairs on the tour, we were all pretty impressed with my dad for being able to do it. 

Just a cave feature that I thought looked gross, but interesting.

We spent a good chunk of the late afternoon and evening at the Timeshare swimming pool.  This is where I was first introduced to my kid's desire to drown herself in the adult pool during that excursion.  She loved the pool though, and for weeks afterwards was still dragging her swimsuit out each and every day to start a discussion about the swimming pool.  (I won't take her alone very often, since her favorite thing to do is to get out, race around and hurl herself into the deep end.  I'm not a good enough swimmer to even pretend that I could save her.)  At the end of the evening we all met up again for ice cream and old home videos that featured mostly Neal as a small child, and outfits and hairstyles that I think might be best forgotten.

Wednesday, we returned to the lake.  This time we opted for a beach on the Idaho side that we liked a lot better.  The beach was bigger, the sand finer, the water warmer, and it stayed very shallow for at least a hundred yards out.  Jared was giving rides on their recently acquired wave runner, the herd of male cousins were engaged in a long-term water fight, and my Vivian...was right back in the sand.  Dirt and rocks...the two most captivating things out there.

These aren't the greatest pictures in the world, but I wasn't taking pictures this trip I guess, so this is what I've got.

Jared did take her and I out on the wave runner, with her sandwiched tightly between us.  She loved "riding on the boat with Jared."  We stayed there until everyone looked exhausted.  Some of the older cousins returned to the pool that evening, but Vivian and I were calling it early every night to keep the remaining morning sickness at bay.  The campers had to leave that night, the rest of us left the next morning.  Although Devon and Annette remained an extra night with another sick kid.

The bug that afflicted Colton eventually spread, and I count us lucky that we managed to escape it.  Meredith and Jake lost hot water in their unit the last day.  A number of us returned sunburned and heat exhausted, but on the whole it seemed pretty uneventful, which is a good thing for a reunion.  Next year in Texas!  I am really looking forward to seeing everyone again!