Hangin' With The Wildlife

{Redfish Lake 2010}

I learned something about myself this past week.  I am afraid of bears.

We took our yearly trip up to the beautiful Redfish lake.  We had a blast-well 95% of the time, the other 5% was spent hiding from bears in our camper.  Just kidding but I wanted to. We have been going up to Redfish for 10 years and have never heard of problems with bears until this year.  They had signs posted everywhere and bear traps set up.  Fun fun! One night after dinner we were sitting around the camp fire and a man came high-tailing it down the trail right by our campsite, he said "just to let you folks know, there is a bear about 10 min up that trail." I freaked-- NATE get the kids and get into the camper now!!! He calmly told me that we weren't going to sit in the camper for the rest of the night-that was just ridiculous, and that I needed to get ahold of myself so that I didn't scare the kids.  So I reluctantly stepped out of the camper and sat in my camp chair with one eye on the woods the entire time!

One morning Braiden stepped out to go...potty, and quickly came back in and said, "Uh-mom, I think that there has been a bear here." So I follow him out and he shows me this:

OK so I am NOT claiming that this is from a bear but I can tell you that it is NOT from a dog and it is NOT from a horse.....

What ever it was walked right down this trail

and left us a lovely present right by the tent pad. Boy am I glad I wasn't sleeping in a tent!!!

OK enough drama.

We spent the majority of our time playing on the beach and boating.

Joslyn was a happy camper

Well, most of the time...

Hudson LOVED the water even though it was ICY cold.  He loved jumping off the dock to me.  He had a blast! Every day he played hard-and then he would crash hard:

Taking a little power nap on the softest spot he could find.

One day we visited the Stanley Museum and had a little picnic there:

Aunt Tiffany and the boys.

Our Family

Aaron and Tiffany

One day we boated everyone to the other end of the lake and hiked up to the Lilly pond and waterfall.

While we were over there Uncle Mark showed everyone this:

He claims it is a bear track, I think he was just trying to freak me out! I'm sticking with 'dog print.'

Hangin' around the campfire telling jokes and stories, and making s'mores of course.

That is scary!

What happens when it is late and dark and your two year old is crawling on top of the picnic table???

A big gash in his chin.  It probably needed stitches  but that wasn't going to happen at 10:00 at night in the mountains. Luckily Dr. Shiloh was there with her bag of tricks and fixed him up with some steri-strips. 

Nate's uncle Mark whittled all of the boys a wooden knife, they love them.

Thanks Mark, that was a lot of work!!

Notice Braiden's face, he is less than thrilled-he loves his knife but he doesn't love going home, we had a great week yes we stayed up there for an entire week but he would have gladly stayed for another!

We can't wait for next year, but someone please let the bears know that next year they are not invited!