The Martinez Family: The Clark Family

I am feeling pretty lazy lately. Why doesn't someone create an app that immediately puts any photo you take into your Blogger account so it's ready to be blogged? And if it already exists-why didn't I know about it? Half the struggle for me to blog anymore is just the sheer time it takes to upload photos. This whole process is so tedious. If I die, my family had better appreciate all the years of blogging I did for them. Because my fingers are tired, my humor is fading and my patience is worn when it comes to blogging. And my brand new, shiny computer is already full of WAY too many photos that are causing it to run slower. So I am combining two posts in one today-Bear Lake and the July Randoms

Bear Lake:
We have been going to Bear Lake as a family for 4 years now. It is one of our favorite summer getaways. There is just something about being on Bear Lake's warm sandy beach that makes me SO HAPPY. We were able to reserve a spot at our favorite campground back in February and again, we went up with our good friends, The Clark family and their extended family. Our kids had a blast having other kids to play with and it was fun for Kendrick and I to have other adults to hang out with around the fire at night. On Friday we were the only family that opted to go to the beach so we spent 6 hours at the beach by ourselves. It was heaven. Seriously, heaven. The water felt so nice. And the day was perfectly sunny and warm, not too hot. I think that I could lay on the beach every day of my life and be one very happy lady.

The high points of the trip were that the dogs came with us, we loved our camping spot, Clint cooked breakfast every morning, we somehow fit everything in the car, no one was hurt, or ill, or slept too badly or was sunburned and Kendrick and I got along peachy (camping has been known to put us both on edge and make us snappy with each other-there was none of that this year), the remake of David and Goliath that Haleigh put together for the kids to act out, the dance party by the fire, and the onion rings.

The low points were the crazy busy beach, not having a camping spot super close to the Clarks, taking the dogs with us, eating a shake that left me feeling bloated and nasty for at least 24 hours, and coming home nearly broke. Why is camping so expensive?

Bear Lake Pics...

July was a super fun month for us. We did a lot of fun things with neighbors and as a family. Honestly, Bear Lake was just sort of the cherry on top of our perfect summer month.
Here are some random pics from the month...

I craved fruit pizza for like two weeks before I finally broke down and made some. It was good but not worthy of a two week craving.

The random text I got from my neighbor one night. I sent Easton over there to deliver a cup of sugar and apparently he delivered much more.

LOVE finding love notes around the house!

Kendrick and I were able to see Dan Reynolds (lead singer of Imagine Dragons) play an acoustic show to raise money for his friend who has cancer. It was so fun! I had never seen a show at the Sandy Amphitheater before and the best part was that it's close enough to our house that we avoided the whole parking fiasco and just walked there.

Waffle Love- if you live here then you definitely need to locate a truck near you and try these bad boys-they are AMAZING! This was my first one. I couldn't finish it and I still felt sick afterward.

Oh just the cutest sight in the world! Myles fell asleep reading the scriptures. He was determined to start reading them himself at night and he made it through like 4 pages before he zonked out.

This kid still refuses to eat anything that touches a vegetable. Lucky for me he drinks veggie juice like it's Coke so I know he'll survive.

July has started off so fun for us! We had cousins in town and we enjoyed some fun family time in the sun, we went to a Baseball game with my parents and Richard and Tiana, we continued with our annual tradition of picnicking at Olympic Park with the Clark family on the 4th, and last night we were able to go paint balling for the first time. Today is only the 8th and July already feels like it's been in full force for weeks because of all the fun things we've done. I love it! These are the days I dream about during the school year.

I'm not in the mood to caption all the pictures or give explicit details about each activity, so here's the quick version of things: Some of my Harris cousins were in town for my cousin's wedding. They stayed an extra week, we hung out, it was awesome. I colored my own hair. It turned a very brassy copper color and I hate it. So I have been living in my favorite hat. I need more hats. In April we bought a paintball pass with a bunch of couples in our ward. It expires next month. Two of the couples bailed, then the weather got hot and we have had a hard time pinning down a sitter for so many kids. So when it finally worked for even just two of us couples to go, we jumped at the opportunity. I was scared to death, even though the whole thing was my idea. But I not only survived it, I enjoyed it and I might even consider doing it again when my current welts heal. We went to the pool today and I looked pretty beat up with bruises on my thighs, stomach and arm. I'm sure people wondered why I would stay with whoever must be beating me;)

July is awesome, but also really really hot. I seem to be loving the heat less and less the older I get. Kendrick agreed that Portland would not be a bad place to live...I was ecstatic. So naturally I do a little house hunting on the internet every morning. But no, we are not moving! Not yet at least;)

Cowabunga Bay with cousins