Redfish Lake 2008

So another year of Redfish Lake has come and gone. It's funny how we all look forward to it like it's some dream vacation, when in reality it's kinda hard to put your finger on what draws us back year after year. I mean, it's tent camping, which includes lots of sand, bugs and dirt, a smoky fire, which you need to stay warm before the sun makes itself useful, the bathroom is 2 blocks away, and has no warm water, the showers are 2 miles away, and cost a handful of quarters before it spits ice cold water on your soapy body, there's no McDonalds or any other basics for 18 month olds or 4 year olds, oh and the lake is only just above freezing on a good day, so taking a swim takes all of ones resolve and the promise of dry towels and warm clothes when you race back to shore.

So why is it we keep coming back?-- the view

the food, the family,








and the fun!

So a few highlights of this year's trip:

~ watching Andy and Saramarie exit their tent every morning. Andy equated it to a rhino giving birth.

~ enjoying all the free time I had while Livi played with all the cousins

~ Belle the golden retriever fetching the stick in the lake, and then shaking on Aunt Alane

~ Dax's face when he dove into the lake - priceless, although he seems to think he may be sterile now

~ Gage singing when you'd pull him in the wagon

~ the moon rising over the lake and counting shooting stars

~ snuggling with my kids in the warm tent after the sun came up

~ listening to Andy quote movies that we'd never seen, but laughing at him just the same

~ Phillip wind surfing and making it look so easy

~ cousin Neil on the tube behind the boat

~ cousin Wyatt trying to walk down to the water with the scuba flippers on

~ Grandma figuring out how to get free fish food from the machine

~ Phillip putting Neil's Blue's Rap to music

~ Livi eating smores

~ Mimi and kids on a treasure hunt for trash and green moss

~ Gage driving the boat

~ all the family around the fire

~ crafts on the beach

~ Grandpa's old jokes

~ Wes sewing the hole in his swim trunks

~ Gage throwing a million rocks into the lake

~ watching Melanie out hike, out windsurf, out wakeboard and basically outcamp all of us at 13 weeks pregnant

~ Livi and Boone paddling the surf board together

~ reading sleazy gossip mags on the beach

All this makes for one great family reunion - be sure we'll all be back again next year!!

By the way, when is the Fujimoto Family Reunuion?!