Bear Lake is a highlight every single summer that we all look forward to so much! This year we packed the car so tight and we were bursting at the seams. We stopped and had so much fun swimming at Lava Hot Springs on the way down and had a blast.
The house we stayed at was so fun! There was a swing set and big slide and a horse shoe pit in the backyard with the most glorious view of the lake! The kids loved spending time back there.
By the end of the weekend I had all the little girls in French braids so I had to take a picture of the cuteness overload. I sure love these cute little chicas!
I love being in the water so much and had a fun adventure with the four littlest Daniels kids. We all piled into my dad's canoe and just floated around using tiny sand shovels as our paddles. It was a ton of fun. We also brought 9 square and set it up in the water. It was a huge hit. We didn't have enough people in our group so we recruited some people that were camped out next to us to play and it was so fun. The Heaths happened to be there the same day and they came and played too. It was so much fun!
After a full day at the beach Grandpa rented a boat and we went out on the lake. I can't find all the pictures unfortunately, but there are videos so we will have to wait for those to come out on our annual home video. I know that Teagan and Taylin went together and Taylin looked like she was going to die of fright and Teagan laughed the whole time when he wasn't trying to give us messages from Taylin like "slow down" and "stop," On the boat we all laughed and thought it was hilarious.
Sheena and I went and Adam gave us a run for our money whipping us around the corners. We went for a long time and almost fell off multiple times, but we stayed strong and had to finally quit when our arms died. It was so much fun!
I know we tried to get the girls on there, but I honestly can't remember if we succeeded. We will have to check the video footage to be sure!
We also had fun playing pickle ball and tennis and swimming at the pools. It's always a fun time with the Daniels family!
On the way home we made a fateful decision that taught our family a lesson we will never forget. We decided to skip church (we always go on our way home) and go on a hike up to Bloomington Lake instead. It was supposed to be super beautiful. The rest of the family was following us and one by one they decided to turn around because the road was getting really narrow and super rocky and uneven. Kurt and Shelly had a trailer and Adam was in his new car. We decided to keep going on our own and suddenly our car was over heating.
It was a tiny mountain road so Zac did his best to pull over to make room for other vehicles to pass by. He opened the hood and we stared blankly at the engine. Zac luckily knows more than I do about cars. He decided it was the radiator so we hiked down to the creek below the road. The kids thought it was super fun and enjoyed adventuring in the woods while Zac got some water to pour in the engine. He did it several times and we just waited for the van to cool off. So many people stopped and offered help, there was no cell service, so it was nice that we weren't alone up there.
After a while Zac put in a little more water and Teagan noticed a little leaky spot clear in the back of the engine in a totally different place than where Zac was adding water. Zac didn't think much of it at the time, but it was very important later.
We turned the van around and started heading back down the mountain. The temperature started rising again and we realized that the van didn't overheat because it was tired, something was broken. Zac tried to just cruise down the mountain and we barely made it and pulled into a parking lot in the fine town of Bloomington. It was Sunday in a tiny town at least 30 minutes from anything. They didn't even have a gas station. We were hours from home and the kids were getting tired and cranky. We felt pretty lost and frustrated.
It was time to pray for help. Zac said the prayer. He said sorry for skipping church and asked for forgiveness. He asked to guide us and help us fix the van so that we could make it home. We all piled out of the van. The parking lot was luckily attached to a park that we were so blessed to have. There was running water, shade and picnic tables. We had plenty of food from the weekend and the kids played in the water spigot with their buckets. If we had to be stranded, we had found an ideal place to do it.
Zac opened the hood and started exploring the leak Teagan had noticed. He realized a hose had broken and needed tools so I set off to make some new friends. I stood at the corner and looked at 3 different houses trying to decide where to knock. One house had a tall plant barrier around the whole perimeter that didn't look very inviting from our view, but the spirit told me that that was the house. I knocked on the door and asked the lady for some tools. I told her our situation and she seemed like she didn't know anything about cars and handed me a little kitchen tool box.
Zac worked and removed the broken part. When he returned the tools she asked more questions and said, "well, my husband will be home from meetings soon, he is a mechanic, maybe he could take a look." Praises!! We couldn't believe it.
He arrived and hesitantly came over, but when he discovered that we were from Idaho, not Utah (haha), and Zac had already isolated the problem and just needed the name of the part to ask the parts store, he was so helpful. They called over to Montpelier and they happened to have the exact part we needed in stock. Our new friend drove Zac all the way there, Zac bought the part, they had it installed in a matter of 20 minutes and just like that we were back on the road headed home.
We felt so blessed. We learned such an important lesson as a family and even though we all wondered why all the other people traveling and not going to church on Sunday weren't having car issues, we knew that we were supposed to be at church. It was amazing to see all of the blessings after we repented. A mechanic across the street? We were broken down at a park? They had our random part in stock? It really was a miracle. Now we will remember our adventures and blessings every time we pass Bloomington on our way to Bear Lake, and you can bet that we will stop and go church on our way home from now on!
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