Better Late than Never - Cabin Trip 2024

Because we spent the Thanksgiving holiday in St. George with the Romneys, we weren't able to go on the Bear Lake Tree Hunt when we normally do. And the next weekend, the first in December, we didn't go so that Chase wouldn't miss the departure of Ethan to the mission field, plus it was our ward's Christmas breakfast. That left the second weekend in December, which is clearly way too late on our end to get our tree. But we didn't want to miss the annual trip with our friends and, like we did a few years ago, we went to the cabin for no other reason than to spend time together. Sadly, we were again without Romney, who could not get away from her work. This is the Place Park is just hopping at Christmastime, and she had some pioneering to do. We really missed her.

I know my posts lately have a missionary theme going, and I don't mean it to be that way. It's just that so many of our closest friends are all sending out missionaries and welcoming them home right now. The Burnetts included. Their oldest, Molly, left in September for the MTC before taking off to serve in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. (That city's name has WAY more letter a's in it than I thought, but the way.) Molly's absence left a gaping hole in the energy of the weekend. She and her siblings had always been in a constant state of wrestling, snuggling, bullying, playing, tackling, tickling, and all-out fighting at pretty much every moment. I'll just say that this weekend was the quietest Bear Lake weekend we have ever had. It was kind of weird, actually. Maggie and Jack do all the same snuggling and sitting on each other, but leave out wrestling each other into submission. 

Here are some of the ways we spent the weekend:

Doing Puzzles! Mary pulled out a puzzle that she and Chase had completed three years earlier, and for some reason had nice memories of working on it. She and Chase both immediately got interested in the puzzle and almost just as quickly remembered what a hard project it is. They spent many hours on the puzzle, even working on it with headlamps when the power was out, as it often is when we stay there. (Troy's about done fiddling with the generator, just for the record. We love the cabin and also we would love it more if the power would just work.)

Snoozing! We all were longing for some down time and enjoyed lounging around.

Eating! We cooked quite a bit this year as always, even though we were really only there for one day. We came in late Friday night (still with enough time to watch Elf of course), and we Preslars had to leave quite early on Sunday, so it was just Saturday. I thought it was adorable that the Burnett kids specifically requested my fancy ramen - which is not fancy at all. It's just ramen. But you add yummy things to it, and everyone loves it. 

We also spent Saturday evening at one of our favorite stops - Glady's, even though now it's a pizza joint. And they do make delicious pizza. Mary was pretty sure she was going to order one pizza for her family until we let her know that we would be ordering three. So she decided on getting two. And not a slice was left.

 

Hilariously, Mary got chatting with an older couple who also came for a pizza, and of course they found all sorts of connections and people they knew in common. Mary almost missed out on the pizza because she was so busy making new friends. 

Getting out! On Saturday afternoon we climbed into the Tahoe and drove down to Mary's brother's construction project, a future neighborhood of vacation homes and golf and swimming. There are a couple of homes built already (one of which we took ourselves on a tour through), and an office trailer with some couches and a few amenities. And a pond out the back door. Which was frozen over. And...a few golf clubs and golf balls. The kids had a hoot playing on the ice, hitting golf balls at each other like ding dongs. Also throwing rocks onto the ice which I thought wasn't a great idea since they were also standing on the ice. But nothing broke through. In fact, the rocks made the most incredible sounds I've ever heard. 

 

Enjoyed beautiful nature! We got quite a bit of snow over the weekend and put the power of the four-wheel-drives to the test.

 

 

Enjoyed our beautiful friends!

We Preslars had to leave quite early on Sunday morning. This was because that day was the day of Paige's homecoming, and we simply couldn't miss it. Luckily her meeting started at noon, not 9 or 10 am, so we headed out at 8:30, and didn't have to drag ourselves out of there before 7:00 or something dreadful like that. We drove straight to the church where a very tired Romney met us (thank you Nicholas for driving her), and we enjoyed a lovely church meeting, a little food at the Mayfields, then headed straight home in dire need of showers and getting the laundry started.