Remembering Ben and Bear Lake Fun.

We had another wonderful week, with thoughts and memories of Ben sustaining us.  More tears shed, but quietly and with reverence for his life.  Now don't assume that we think Ben is perfect, we don't, but we are focusing on all his goodness, of which there was much.

 On Monday we did home chores and then took Darby's car in for an estimate on her bumper damage after hooking something on the freeway that broke it.  The estimate was ridiculous and since the damage isn't too noticeable, she decided to pass.

Dad worked on the dishwasher, which had leaked, in the afternoon and then we got ready to go to the play for Onion Days, our only bit of Onion Days for this year since we're headed to Bear Lake at the weekend and missed all the fun.  (Fortunately Becca's family came down for the parade on Labor Day, so our prime spot on Main was not wasted.)

 Meanwhile,  I did important things like, pulling out the dead flowers from Ben's memorial arrangements, and filling in with flowers from our garden.  I intended to take the bottom one, which was originally an arrangement given to us by Brittany,  to the cemetery for Ben, but ran out of time.

I also jazzed up the shelf above the sink with color I had found at the DI in Saint George the previous weekend. I am making a lot of changing to my black and white kitchen, and I'm loving the difference.

On Tuesday we went to pick up a fine selection of Grandkids to entertain for the day.  Here Elias shows off the house of straws that he made with the help of his sisters.

 Here we are at home, having a picnic in the garden house.  I loved that Adi said she didn't want mac and cheese, but when she saw everyone else eating it, mine is homemade, she wanted some and ate more than anyone. (its good for my mediocre cook's heart)

 The men with their mac.

 The kids found a few superheros I had in my craft room, and wanted to play with them.  Penny carrying the Hulk around like a baby doll just cracked me up.

 They all played so nice, and even helped me as I finished up the decor for Becca's birthday party that night.

Adi was my main, brick wrapping assistant at home, and here she is with Reagan as we set up later that afternoon at Becca's.

 Spencer came early to help as well, and tied most of the lanterns in the trees.

 Darby came early to help as well.  This is the table area with the balloons tied into the brick packages, mostly by Brittney.

 This is the Happy Birthday banner that I glittered myself with before church on Sunday ... then wore to church after much brushing and washing anyway. Hahaha

This is the 'this is the right place for Becca's party' banner on the outside of the fence as everyone was directed to park on the street behind her house and come through the gate. What a perfect party house.

 Let the party begin ... it was fun to have lots of our favorite people, the Heuers on hand...

 Here's the Perkins' and Okada's Table.

 Our favorite photo bombist.

 and some other assorted Moes, some disguised as Seamons  ...

We enjoyed dinner served at two different food trucks.  Becca's birthday party included her clients and she wanted to make her birthday bash special for us all. (Many family members and close friends are also clients.)  This is the dough nut truck, there was also a pizza truck.  Becca brought in several mixed fruit trays to balance the meal.

Bri and Darby

You may recall that Becca and Ben share a birthday, so that the party was also a celebration for Ben.  Here we see that even the bounce house obstacle course starts with a B, albeit a lazy B laying on its back for Ben and Becca.

The kids had fun in Becca's sand pile too.

Reagan shows off the Strawberry Shortcake Dough nut selection.

Trina, Ryan and Kamryn.

Of course the party wouldn't be complete without some more Summers, Becca's in-laws.

This is the only picture I found of Becca at her own party, how sad is that?  In my defense, she did spend most of her time mingling with clients.  There were about 120 in attendance.  Becca was worried no one would come.  Sweet girl.

 Well fed brothers.

Easton, Ryan and Tia Moe with Melodi Heuer (Daniel's wife)

Here we see my granddaughter Nenna playing with Robin's granddaughter Aria. (Melodi's daughter)

I teased Eva about taking a closeup, this is the result .... who knew she had x-ray vision??!!

On Wednesday Dad got back to his 'paint it black' project. He'd pulled off the siding and aluminum windows outside my craft room on Tuesday when we were watching grands, and then painted that day.

 I was off for a day at work, and stopped at the cemetery on the way home.  All of the dead arrangements where still in place, not sure why as the cemetery says it removes them after a week, but I hauled them over to a garbage can, leaving the flowers Becca had brought for their combined birthday, a pair of dum dums (not sure about what they mean) and some balloons that someone else had left.  

 Dad went to help Darby to pack for her move that afternoon, and then she took him to dinner at Mi Rancherito in Spanish Fork.  Of course that reminds me that Ben always loved to order the Tostada Grande there. Yep, everything reminds me.  Thanks for taking care of Dad, Darby.

Later Dad showed me this picture of the senior missionaries in one mission in England, and says that it proves my late inspiration that we should go to Finland instead, as we are more needed there.

 I got home in time to grab a bite,before heading to the church for our Young Women's activity.

 We talked about the history of quilting in a discussion lead by Becky Christensen.

 Then we headed to the Springville Art Museum where they were doing a quilt show.  This quilt is a  1/2 size replica of the quilt that Jane Austen, her sister Casandra and their mother made in the early 1800s.  Some brilliant company reproduced all the fabrics found in the original quilt and then sold them in full size and half size kits.  I may have seen this one before, as someone in Utah County came to my house for Jane's birthday years ago when the Jane Austen Society of Utah held their meeting here.  Anyway, so fun to see.

 This beautiful Grandma's Flower Garden quilt was made by Marion McClellan.  She lives in our , stake and started the long running Epic Quilt day we hold once a month here.

 There were these small bee paintings in the gift shop, and I thought I'd save this image as a possible idea to go with the festival of tree's tree, that my service (WeCan) group is doing this year.  The name of the tree is to be: Bee-You-tiful, and we are now going to dedicate it to Ben.  I plan to put large letter B's to stand for Ben all over the tree, and will paint them with yellow and black bee stripes.

 On Thursday I worked again, while Dad did his temple shift.  I'd started split pea soup in a crock pot that morning, for dinner for my friend Ginny Taylor, who had minor eye surgery and who had been sentenced to laying on her stomach for 10 days (How crazy is that).  Dad finished it up, bottled it up, and added some homemade white bread, and took it over to them.  He's amazing at supporting my crazy schemes, and I couldn't have done it without him.

Then we met up with the crazy kids above to see Dallas and his Band in concert at a neighborhood event in Saratoga Springs.

 Here's Dad with the Mac.

 ...and the rest of the gang ... Nell had brought popcorn which made it even more fun.

 Darby, Bri and Dave.

Ashley, Nenna and Mac

 Eva  and Davin

 The Band

A great time was had by all.

 Then Dad and I headed to SLC, near where he grew up on Fardown, to enjoy seeing lots of missionaries from our recent mission.  Above Dad stands by a double Finnish missionary couple that left about the time we arrived, and who are now married.  Next to Dad is Phillip Sisco, one of our favorite missionaries, who is here attending BYU.

 Here's a picture of more of our missionaries.

Here's a picture that was taken before we got there, and includes many missionaries with whom we served.

Yep, Sister Wilson and Elder Brown are now Anna and Cameron Brown.

 On Friday Dad and I took our time packing up to camp at Bear Lake.  We also did shopping for the trip, returned some stuff around town, delivered a mattress and box springs to Becca for her Nanny who was coming that day, and picked up bikes for Trevor's family.  In the end we didn't actually start out drive to Bear Lake until after 3:00, It was actually very nice to not be hurried, but this is the only picture I took at Bear Lake that day, because we were busy setting up until dark.  Hi Elias, let the s'more adventure begin.

A side note here on the s'more adventure. On Saturday Adi and Elias met a boy on the beach, named Roman.  He was playing in our camp on Sunday and I was concerned, as it got dark, that his mother would be worried, so I had him and Adi walk me down the beach to his family's camp, which was a good block away.  Back in camp Adi came up to me with him and said 'Mimi, in our family we have a rule that we don't break into cars, right?"  I thought that was a bit odd, but reiterated that we did indeed have that family rule.  Puzzled I remembered something Randy had said earlier about kids asking him for marshmallows.  I went over and he told me that Adi and her friend had asked for marshmallows, but he told them they were put away.  Later the kids came back and asked where he had put them away, when he said they were in his car, they asked him to go to his car and get some.  Still later they came back and asked if they could get in his car.  Randy said no, and as they walked away the little boy said to Adi, "I guess we'll need to get the key." That's when I understood that Adi was being pressured by this little boy (Whose father said they had just adopted him and he has some problems ...) and she was trying to do what she should, by getting me to tell the boy that we don't break  into cars in our family.  The whole thing was hilarious, and I was so proud of Adi for being a friend to this rather PeterPanish child, and for trying to do the right thing.  I obviously got our stuff for them to make s'mores.  

The last s'smore pic, modeled by Katrina as she attempts a bite at the biggest s'more yet.

 Here we are Saturday morning, as Trevor sings to Dallas' playing.  Davin's TajtentMahal in the background, Dad's homemade root beer is to the right.

 Here's Nenna with a snack and a percussion instrument she made to help with music making (a stick and a rock, isn't she brilliant?)

 Then let the game playing begin with a little Mexican Train.

Learning to play Tricks.

 I'm showing pictures from our weekend by event, if you haven't picked that up, rather than the clock and calendar.  I got so many pics from others, that mixed together, mainly because of screen shots, that they were all out of order anyway.  This is Nenna and Papa.

 Eric Moe makes antlers for Dave.

 Some Distant Cousins, Penny, Nenna, and Kensy Seamons, Trina Moe's daughter. Wish I could call them Penny, Nenny and Kenny.... just saying.  They are ages 3, 4 and 5.

 Scott and Bri.

 Trevor, Penny and Kylie Moe.

 More distant cousins climbing trees, Kamryn and Eleanor climbing a tree.

The group site was amazing, along with a couple of other camp sites to 'house' the 49 in our group, if we count our three dog campers, its 52.

 Robin and Caleb got there late Saturday afternoon, and left Sunday afternoon, but it was fun to have them (plus two dogs) while they were here

 Love Chris and Ginger Heuer in their family's eclipse t's.

 Dad even found a minute for an afternoon nap.

 Here we are playing Zilch with Lily Heuer and Kamryn Seamons.

 Adi and Lu playing games and

Penny and Nenna sharing hugs and 

and more games, this one with Bri, Hanna, Kayson, Adi, Scott, Dave and Eva.

 More fire time too.

 Here we are saying goodbye to Trevor and Nell's family after church on Sunday.

Dallas, Hannah and Darby made Jambalaya for dinner on Sunday Night.  Yum.

 Now for beach pictures .... fortunately Trevor remembered that its a tradition to bury someone on the beach at Bear Lake.  Eleanor was a good sport and was central to the event.

Such a cute head on the beach, don't you think?

Here she is after the fact.

Isn't it fun what one can do with sea weed?  We've all heard of The Old Man and the Sea, but now we have The Old Woman and the Sea as well... OK I know its really a man-bun. Good job Trevor.

 Eva, our favorite mermaid.

 Eva out rowing on 10 inches of water, the shallows run out for a thousand feet.  Such a fun play area.

Enjoying the castle that Ben Heuer made.

 Trevor planned a special memorial for Ben on Friday night.  He brought paper lanterns for us to let go when the wind blew over the lake.  It was really beautiful to see them float away.  Ryan Seamons had brought his drone and made a vid from the sky that he and Trina will edit.  We will post it to the Family Face Book page when we get it.

After the paper balloons had all floated away we stood in a circle, about 20 of us, and shared memories of Ben, starting with those that happened at Bear Lake.  

Though the Heuers and Moes, and ourselves, the Homokins, as we term it, have been friends for 27 years, our children mostly have gotten to know each other on inter-family trips, because after the first few years we lived in opposite ends of Utah County.  Bear Lake happened for about 20 years in all, and was the place they mostly became friends. It was a wonderful tribute to our beloved Ben.

 On both Saturday and Sunday Dallas took select members of the group to nearby (one hour) Birch Creek Reservoir for fly fishing lessons.  Eva had planned to go with the group on Saturday, but disagreed as to a one hour drive being near-by.  Dad, Darby and Hannah went along on that trip. It was a very windy day and Dallas accidentally caught Dad in the arm with a fly. He felt really bad but we joked that he caught a 200 pounder and fortunately he didn't throw him back.

 Here Hannah gets ready to start fly fishing.

Dallas shows off the largest catch of all, made when he and Darby went fishing on Sunday, the fish all were thrown back to be caught at a bigger size another day.

 After the kids were in bed, we gathered Saturday night.  Here's Davin, Trevor, Eric, Briahnna, Trina, Scott, Robin, Hannah and Jeff.

 These guys and later Davin watched the BYU on two screens, cheering for the most exciting plays ...

Then they ran to the other screen, which was on delayed timing to watch it again. It was very entertaining for those of us who were playing games, to watch them cheer and run back and forth.

 On Sunday morning it was off to church in Laketown.  This is the beautiful old Sandstone chapel where we attended.  There are modern additions behind.

 Here's the Moe clan, minus Krista's husband who I cut off on the far left.  We are in the cultural hall, with a projection screen, there were monitors set up in many of the other possible rooms, and Hallways.  The Mason were a bit late getting there and actually sat on the floor of a coat closet in the basement, without any kind of screen.  But heck, now they can say they once attended sacrament meeting on the floor of a coat closet in the basement, right?

 Here's the church-going Perkins contingent.  The ward hosts vacationers at the lake all summer, but Memorial Day and Labor Day are always the busiest.  It was cool to see how efficient the Deacons were.  Each had two trays in his hands and worked quickly.  When the Bishop bore his testimony after half a dozen other testimonies, he said it had been a record breaking meeting.  So I sought him out for the hard numbers, because that is what I do.  1417 were in attendance.  Their previous record was 1200 in one meeting, though in both meetings (they do a second on these two holidays) they had had 1400 combined once.  It made us feel great to know that it was the Homokins-Masons who put them over 1400!!

The bishop is a summer fire-fighter, and talked about a recent fire they'd had where several firemen and a couple of firetrucks where encircled by a wild fire. Another fireman had shot his hose into the area where they were trapped, allowing a safe passage for escape.  Then he likened the path which was provided to the things we do to keep the 'world' at bay, such as daily Book of Mormon reading, daily prayer, family home evening, church attendance, etc.  Barb said she thought he was going to say the man holding the hose was the Savior who provides the way to safety, or to living with God.  But really it is those things that the Bishop mentioned, that are basically Christ's Gospel, and they are the safety route, and that is how Christ is our savior.  (That and the atonement)  I loved the analogy.

 This is the side view of the church and its additions.  I love that the numbers visitors provide means a commodious building for the local who are amazingly kind about their summer invaders.

After church, and after Trevor's family had left (Davin's family had gone jet skiing with Hannah, and  Dallas, and Darby were fishing.) we all went for a long walk through the camp ground and came back along the beach (A mile each way) which was fun for us all, except Kyler, Trina's oldest, who thought we all walked too slowly.

Well that's all for our week, and it was fun to wrap up another fun filled weekend at Bear Lake.  We would all pack up and clean up on Monday morning. we hope that your Labor Day Weekend was full of fun and memories.