Bye Bye Bear Lake House

We are very sad. After 13 years, Nanny and Papa are selling their Bear Lake house.

It was not the perfect house. The upstairs only had two large bedrooms so it was hard to accommodate all the siblings' families at the same time, but we grew to love it. Every summer we vacationed up at this house and created a ton of memories.

Here are some of our treasured traditions:

• Captain Papa, the boat, waverunners and other watercraft: Papa's boat, four winns, is a big part of Bear Lake. All the kids have tubed from it. Many have kneeboarded or skiied from it. It and the waverunners are a big part of the experience. The many kayaks, canoes, and paddleboards have also been super fun.

• Swim Time with ABBA: This is one of my favorites. At least once per trip while out on the boat, we stop and everyone jumps in the water. We've made it a point to always play ABBA on the stereo system.

• Bouwhuis Bootcamp and the great clean up: After all the fun is done and we finally are ready to end the trip, there is a collosal effort to clean everything up. It involves pulling everything out of the water, hauling it up to the house, then spraying everything down and putting it away. There is also a crew assigned to cleaning the boat and the jetskis.


• Phippen's floating dock: Ever since we've gone to bear lake, there's been a floating metal dock that the kids have spent hours and hours rough-housing, sunbathing, playing hide-n-seek on.

• Tate's sand castles and subsequent castle crack: I've spoken about this many times it's going to have to

• Home-made Pizza: While we haven't done this consistently, making home-made pizza has been a big tradition up there. Tate, our foodie, loves it more than anyone else.

• Vintage Nintendo games: Because the Bear Lake house is located out on the more remote, East side of Bear Lake, their is no wifi and limited access data. This is both a blessing and curse. It forces the kids to play outside a lot more. However, one of the draws is an old Nintendo N64 gaming system. It gets heavily used on while we're there.


• Smores at the fire pit: Once every trip, we always go down to the general use fire pit and do smores. I think we are the only people that use that firepit because I've never seen anyone else down there. It probably has to do with the fact that we built it; well, JBJ, Papa, and I did.

• Inside Jokes: There have been some great lines delivered at Bear Lake that now forever live in infamy within our family lore:
  
  
  
  • The line angrily uttered from Emily's niece's mouth when Greyson noisily came upstairs early one morning: "Greyson...go downstairs...NOW"
  
  
  • The words the kids swear they heard from a radio commercial on the way up to Bear Lake: "Girls are strong and do you why? because of Strawberries."
  
  
  • Harper: While trying to pay Tate and his friend, Josh, a compliment: "Tate is skinny and strong. Josh is strong...and strong"
  
  
  
  

We're not sure where we'll vacation next year. But wherever it is, it won't ever be the same as our Bear Lake house.