Lost and Found....sort of.

Last week, just after arriving home from the yearly fall consignment sale, where I scored big time on some new duds for my kiddos, I was grabbing a large basket of goodies from the back seat when it hit me with a terrible flash, when I put these things in here, my hands were full and I set my wallet on top of the car so I could open the door. No, no, NO! I rushed to find my purse and sure enough my beautiful orange wallet was missing. I searched the car, under the seats, through all my baskets of beautiful new clothes, nothing! It was officially 11:00PM and I had just driven more than 40 miles on the freeway with my wallet on top of my car! I rushed into the house and very nearly started crying, all I could think of was, I've got to go look for it, but honestly where would I begin? Forty miles, and one tiny little orange wallet. Instead I called the police, honestly, I wasn't sure what exactly they could do for me, but they were awesome. The police dispatch had an officer call me back within 5 minutes, and that officer, who I'm going to call Officer Helpful, offered to go and look for me. Officer Helpful called me back within 20 minutes, he had gone to the church checked with the people who were still there and finding no luck, then drove my route onto the freeway. "The news is good and bad" he said, "I found your checkbook, but it was on the entrance to the freeway, it has been run over many times, and I nearly got hit trying to retrieve it, I looked all over but can't find anything else".
At this point I knew my wallet had traveled even further down the freeway, it was under my checkbook and the cover was a smooth vinyl surface, perfect for clinging to the car roof. Officer Helpful gave me a evidence claim number to pick up my checkbook and told me there were 12 different jurisdictions between the freeway entrance where I got on and the freeway exit where I got off, and that they did not share information and I would need to contact each department to see if they had found my wallet, ugahhh, you have got to be kidding me! I spent the next hour trying to remember everything in my wallet, debit card, credit card, drivers licence, insurance cards, library card, work ID, my boys miniature birth certificates, my open water diver card, a little money, lots of gift cards, and a punch card for Cafe Rio that I had just gotten my last stamp in earlier that day....I put my head down and cried. I woke up early the next day and got started, in addition to canceling everything in my wallet, I was in charge of our annual ward chili cook off the next day and needed to call everybody who had a food assignment and remind them, there were about 60 of them. I was in the middle of a phone call with the bank when the twins started screaming, they were fighting with one another, and I could not hear the woman on the phone, in frustration I stepped onto the front porch to try to hear better, but my kids saw me and started banging on the door and trying to open it, to get out to me. I'm sure I was quite the sight, eight o'clock in the morning, standing on my front porch, balancing the phone with my shoulder, holding the doorknob closed with both hands, while my children screamed and banged desperately on the other side. Just then, Jer came to kiss be goodbye as he headed off to work, I couldn't even look at him, I was so frustrated, thoughts of making the rest of my 60 plus phone while dangling from the front door knob overwhelmed me. He saw my plight, and called his boss, who took pity on me and relieved him from work for the day. Jer dressed the kids, packed them all up and walked Jack to his bus stop. He kept them busy for the next couple of hours as I made call after call, "remember your chili" "please cancel my visa" "make sure to have your dessert at the church by 6PM" "why exactly are no state offices open on Fridays?" Oh yea, budget cuts, the ten day work week, I forgot. The rest of the day pretty much went like that. Over the next week, I received phone calls from various police agencies who had found bits and pieces of my wallet. The actual wallet itself has never been found, but most things with my name on them have, too bad I didn't write my name on that completely filled out Cafe Rio card, DARN! As of today most everything has been replaced, except for my wallet, I really loved that thing, I ordered it specifically off the Internet about 9 months ago, it was so cute and orange, just my style.
This is my new wallet, I ordered it just now, I couldn't find one like the one I had, but I thought this would be fun, another 5-7 business days and I'll be back in order, much better than this ugly little police evidence bag that I have been using to keep my things together.
Morale of this little story, do not put your purse on top of your car ever! Also, it's a really good idea to photo copy everything in your wallet. Oh, and just to be safe, write your name on your Cafe Rio card the moment it's filled out!

Back to Bear Lake

Most of my childhood summers ended the same way, an amazing Labor Day weekend at Bear Lake. We always went with my extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, it was fun. Boy have we extended, this year we went back, with everybody for the first time in over fifteen years! I think there were 69 of us including children. WOW!
It was like a time warp, nothing had changed about the place, the condos were, for the most part, the same.


The acres and acres of beautiful green lawn still called for us to shoot/catch water balloons, the lake as blue and cold as ever was still perfect for skiing, wake boarding, and playing along the beach for hours making sand castles.




We all took our bikes and rode the many trails and sidewalks that line the property, my mom even took all the kids on a "kid ride" which gave the rest of us a little break.

We ate gallons of food, laughed hysterically for hours, and enjoyed watching our children find joy in the exact same places that we did,

I think we hauled enough sand home in crevices to build our own little castles here. It was great to spend time with my siblings and their spouses, many of whom live far away.
We met the three new babies born to our family in the last six months and were amazed that despite all that additional genetics of the spouses, look unusually similar, chubby, fair, bald, happy little babies (mine would have easily fit right in).
We ended the weekend by rushing home Monday morning to get ready for family pictures but not before stopping at Le Beau's for raspberry shakes! YUM! Great weekend, great fun, great family!