Summer Days

Summers are my favorite.

These pictures are from a day in 2015, but days like this are perfect in my book.

I spent the day swimming with The Circus, and then we hit a movie in the park that evening.

I could live forever in a summer day.

Circus Adventure: Sand Hollow. Always.

If you haven't discovered the beauty that is Sand Hollow yet, all I have to ask is why not?

The beaches are soft and red.

The water is clear and warm.  In the fall, that is.  In the spring they're clear and cold.

This reservoir sits in the dessert in Hurricane, Utah.  Pronounced: "Hurrikin."

I know, it doesn't make any sense, but I didn't make the rules, I just follow them.

We've been visiting Sand Hollow at least once (but usually twice) a summer for several years now.  It doesn't matter if we're camping right on the beach, or parked in a paved camping spot with hookups.  It doesn't matter if we've brought the rzr's for riding, or the jet skies for pulling people on tubes and knee boards, or if we've brought or scuba gear for diving, or if we've just simply brought swimsuits and sand toys.

We love this place.

I think that's the part of the beauty of this place. How accommodating it is to different outdoor hobbies.  The Man likes to ride his rzr.  Great.  Sand Hollow has it's own mini sand dunes set aside for just that.  As well as several trails just outside the park and rocks for climbing around in.

Papa Mike likes to take his jet skies out.  Great.  You can do that here.

Grandpa Brent is all about scuba diving.  Great.  There's a section of the lake buoyed off limits for boats specifically for scuba diving.  They've even planted an airplane, a VW bus, a toilet, as well as platforms, tubes, and different shapes for swimming around in.  We even found an old missile.  And the canyons that are made by the natural rock formations are amazing.  The lake isn't very deep.  We only hit 40 feet at our deepest, and generally stayed around 30 feet, but that just means we're open to dive all day long if we so desire, and if we have the air left to do it.

The Circus likes to swim from rock island to rock island and jump into the water from the higher tips.  Great.  There isn't anything too high that it makes me nervous for them to be doing that, and the rock islands are inside the scuba diving area, so there aren't any boats around while my kids are out swimming and jumping.  The area is good for them to practice their snorkeling as well.

(My camera got fogged up with moisture on this picture, but it shows how Cali spent the whole weekend so I included it anyway)

I generally like to sit on the beach with my feet in the water, reading a good book, enjoying the sun, and hanging out with my kids.  Great.  The beaches are incredible.

This trip we loved have Grandpa Brent and Grandma Julie hanging out with us.  We also had my good friend and her kids join us as well.  Plus, we let Sean bring a friend on this trip in lieu of a birthday party.

 But even if we have to go it alone, we think Sand Hollow is a pretty great place to land for a few days.

I Miss This. Sand Hollow.

I miss this.

I could spend another week sitting on the soft sand with the 80 degree (F), crystal clear water, and the 90 degree (F) air temps.  Lunch with my parents, my husband by my side, my kids... all over the place.  But that's allowed in this setting.

My sister-in-law Sheri and my nephew Christian got to come and enjoy it with us.

Tell you what, it was hard to leave it.

The Man and I don't usually frequent the same spots over and over.  When we go somewhere we want to go somewhere new, see different things, cross more spots off our list.

But Sand Hollow has our hearts.  It's the place (along with Moab) that we keep going back to.

And now, a picture overload.

We stopped in Scipio to check out our friends at the free petting zoo on our way down to Sand Hollow.  We always leave a donation in the box.  The zebra is our favorite, the ostrich scares the tar out of us (watch out, he pecks at your head), and the little goats remind me a lot of my dogs, pushing your legs with their noses as they demand attention.

After that it was heaven spent, only pulling ourselves off the beach for lunch with my parents and when it was time to wind down and have dinner as the sun was setting.

One of us is wearing too much clothing for the occasion... it's not me.  Though The Man may have had a hand in that...

Tay, Cali, and Christian with the dolphin float

They played a lot of Harry Potter 

 
Milo's favorite game is biting at "shooting" water.  He chases the hose, the sprinklers, and the water gun at Sand Hollow was no different.  The dogs loved their life jackets, especially when we went on our long swim/climb around the giant rock piles in the lake.

Cali was so worn out after the first day of non-stop swimming that she passed out in the middle of the trailer floor, wet suit and all.

The rock adventures were amazing.  The last time we took the kids to this spot (here) the water was really high, but this year the water was much lower, leaving more of the rock in the lake exposed.  There was a lot more exploring going on.  It also didn't hurt that water was so nice and warm.

Brynn caught a lizard.

And we celebrated Christian's 13th bday with cake balls.  I regret not putting candles in the boxes while we sang.

And one night it rained in a fantastical downpour with thunder and lightning.  So we curled up in the trailer and watched a movie, or played cards in the cargo trailer.

I love that the water was so crystal clear that you can see Brynn under the water in this picture:

Strider did not like the kids jumping off the rock into the water.  He would bark loudly at them as they were jumping, and then swim out and try to herd them back onto the rock.    Once he got them back safely on the rock he would climb out and be calm, until they jumped in again and he started all over again with barking at them and swimming out the herd them back in.

I definitely miss this.