Ruben Family Reunion

A few weeks ago we had the Ruben Family Reunion up at Bear Lake. I haven't been to Bear Lake in 7 years and I really wonder why we haven't made it up there in so long. The kids loved it, it's close to home, you have the beach, hiking, raspberries, so many of my favorite things. We will definitely have to head up again next summer I think. Since the reunion included something like 45 people my Grandma rented out a lodge for us to all stay at with 14 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms. We were very comfortable and had a great time all 4 days. Some of the things we did were the Minnetonka caves, ATV-ing, beach time, Pickleville Playhouse, Bear Lake Pizza, raspberry shakes, ping-pong tournaments (apparently Josh is unbeatable), and the Ruben talent show. I even learned the names of all my cousins while I was there! Here are a bunch of pictures.

We are blessed with such smiley, happy children.

The Minnetonka caves were fun and fairly good workout with all those stairs. The guide actually turned off the lights and let us go through part of the cave in total darkness which was cool.

I love the ATVs, but I'm a little slow. Poor Josh had to keep stopping and waiting for me to catch up. We caught a very pretty view of the lake from up high.

We ordered an "Old Ephraim" size pizza at the Bear Lake Pizza Co. It's 28" and fed all of us with a slice or two to spare.

We ended the trip with the famous Bear Lake raspberry shakes and, of course, a meltdown. Sydney didn't want a raspberry shake. She wanted a plain vanilla cone. We we rolled our eyes and had Tanner trade with her. And everyone was happy again.

Timpanogos

Well I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself blogging about this event only two days after it happened. It seems like I don't get around to blogging about anything for at least a month later these days! Last Saturday we hiked Mt. Timpanogos. We'd been planning on this hike all summer with some friends. I had done the hike when I was a teenager but, wow, it was easier back then. And when I did it then it had been cloudy and cold and in the end we were hiking in a cloud so we couldn't see any of the amazing view. This time we had beautiful weather and the view was incredible and definitely worth the trek.

We were able to see the peak at about the halfway point of the hike. I didn't know that was the peak and I didn't think it was humanly possible to get up there. But we did!

Here is the view we got of Utah Lake from the summit. The summit is about a mile from the peak, but the view is almost the same.

Here is our group. Sharidee, Sara, Josh, me, Mike, and Jeff. Mike and Jeff were super fast and set a nice brisk pace for us the whole way up. They had a soccer game to get back to that afternoon. Apparently, hiking 18 miles is not enough exercise in one day for these guys. They went ahead of us once we got to the summit so they could hurry and get to the top and run down the mountain to get home. Crazy boys.

We made it to the top! I love this picture because Sara and Sharidee look like they're going to fall off the mountain. I have to admit there were times I was thinking we really should have increased our life insurance before doing this hike. I'm not a big fan of heights. By the way, Sara is 16 weeks pregnant and did this hike. She's amazing.

There are two ways to get down from Timpanogos. The way you went up or by sliding down the glacier. We chose not to slide down the glacier because nobody else seemed to be going that way. Sara really wanted to do it but got outvoted. Sorry! We did still slide down this hill of snow though and it was super fun. This was the only picture we got that worked out. Josh enjoyed listening to us scream the whole way down.

8 hours later we made it back to the car. I had read that it was about 12.5 miles roundtrip. When we got to the bottom the ranger told us it was an 18 mile hike. We were so excited! In my book 18 miles is a pretty big accomplishment.