Our lake trip

We haven't really gone anywhere this summer. There's been a myriad of reasons for that--McKay running so much, Darwin's work schedule, a new baby--but the end result is we've been major homebodies this summer. It's been nice in a lot of ways, but we needed a bit of time to feel like we were on vacation.

So this Saturday we just spent the afternoon at Deer Creek Resevoir. We kept it really simple. A few sandwiches and crackers and drinks and stuff for swimming was all we brought, since we needed to carry it all down from the car to the beach along with all five littles.

The kids were in heaven. They've been asking for the beach all summer. Obviously landlocked Utah doesn't have ocean, but the lake worked for them. They liked the swimming and the sand and all that being near the water entailed.

It was a lovely day and the water was refreshing. The resevior is often quite chilly, but it was tolerable on Saturday. A bit on the cool side, but easy enough to get used to. There was enough cloud cover that the day was not burning hot, and it didn't rain until later in the evening.

Ella slept under her carseat shade and an umbrella for the bulk of the time.

Hannah was a big fan of digging, building "castles" and just feeling the mud. She swam a little, but the seaweed kind of freaked her out.

Garrett liked running in the shallow water and along the beach and digging in the sand. He got his feet pretty dirty. He is usually very tidy, but he didn't seem to mind much, as long as it was just his feet.


Michael was pretty much in and out of the water all day. He didn't care much for getting sandy. He got home and crashed after all of the swimming all day.

McKay just loved laying in the sand. It looks like a rough life, doesn't it? He even got Garrett to try, but Garrett was not as thrilled about laying the dirt and getting it in his hair and all over.

Of course, all this getting covered in sand meant McKay had to go wash off often. He looks pretty broken up about that, doesn't he?

This is the bay we swam in. It was still very cool water. But a little warmer than the deeper parts of the lake, since it was so shallow. Picturesque, eh?