Bear Lake Adventure

Life has been a lot of fun the last few months :)

A while ago, during Nurses' Week, I was oh-so-lucky to win a prize! At work, we are encouraged to donate a themed "basket" of some sort to be put in a raffle for someone to win during Nurses' Week. There were all kinds of baskets ranging from spa days to gardening kits to movie nights, etc etc. I think we each got 4 raffle tickets (or more if you donated a basket) and we got to choose which baskets we put them in. I was real excited when I saw one for a Bear Lake vacation. Brian and I had spent part of our honeymoon there and went back for our 1 year anniversary to get their famous raspberry shakes! 

We really do love it there.

We hadn't ever been there in the winter, however, and I was THRILLED when I won the basket! It included some ski/snowboarding passes, pancake mix and delicious syrup, a spatula (which we actually really needed), a gift card for a restaurant there, and a 2 night stay in a cute little condo! It was donated by the sweetest girl at work - thanks again, Erin!!

So, that was back in the spring and we'd been looking forward to going ever since. So, once Brian got done with classes and finals, we were off!

And let me tell you, it was no picnic getting there. I was afraid for my life. The roads were terrible. Every other small car we saw turned back or were slid off the road because they couldn't make it up the mountain. We also didn't make it up one of the mountains the first 2 times we tried. But, we were determined to go on our vacation and went really fast in order to get up the mountain. To say I was terrified would be an understatement. Brian was driving or we would have never made it. Want to see what the roads looked like? Check it out:

I was terrified

Anyway, we were SO grateful to make it there and settled right into our cozy condo :)

Isn't it cute?! For dinner we decided that we'd grill some hot dogs on the grill outside (the blizzard only made that more adventurous and fun). We wrapped them in bacon and they were pretty good despite the burned hotdogs. Sorry, hun.

For the next few days we got to relax, play in the snow, rediscover the town in the wintertime, go sledding and snowboarding, and eat delicious food! We felt very spoiled. It was a much appreciated vacation after Brian's super difficult semester!

The perfect little winter town - looks like it came right out of a Christmas card.

We were the only ones in the whole restaurant! Aaaand... the raspberry shakes were as good as ever!

All the boats beached for the winter...

We saw some real live moose! We were just out driving around looking around town when we saw an emergency vehicle go zooming past and up to this huge cabin. Using the zoom lens on the camera, we were able to see that there were moose in the cabin's yard! They came running down the hill right towards us and we were able to get a few good pictures. They were really quite cute... though I've heard they are super not the cuddly type. More like the attack you type. Especially because it was a momma and her baby! My first moose siting!

We can't wait to go back!