Mammoth Lakes, CA

My brother Greg leaves for his mission on July 22 and we won't be together with him for two years. So my parents thought it would be a good opportunity to spend some quality time together as a family. They planned a week vacation for all of us up in Mammoth Lakes, CA. Our family came from Utah and Jeff and Mandy came from Arizona and we all met at my parents house. We left on a Monday, June 8th and headed up to Mammoth. When we got there I think we were all quite surprised. It was cold cold cold and drizzly. All of us (except my parents) expected nice sunny summer weather and packed our clothes with that thought in mind. In fact, some of us didn't even bring a sweatshirt or pants at all. My suit case contained a million pairs of shorts and one pair of jeans. My sister-in-law packed all shorts and Capri's. So the first stop we made was to a local Rite-aid to purchase some sweatshirts. I had to buy one for me and for Chelsea since I only packed summer type clothes for her as well (so when you see the pics and I'm always in the same outfit...that's why). My parents rented a cabin for the week and it was very very nice. It was large enough for us all to fit comfortably.

view from the deck of the cabin

View down the street

After we arrived and got things unpacked we headed in to town for a pizza dinner at this yummy restaurant called Nik-N-Willies Pizza. It was such delicious pizza. They piled the toppings so high and it was covered with a mountain of cheese. I don't think I've had such a yummy pizza. After dinner we made a pit stop at the Rite-air, which I already mentioned.
The next day the weather was pretty poopy. It was cloudy and cold all morning and then it rained all afternoon. The boys (My dad, Brad, Jeff and Greg) went golfing, while the girls had plans for some sort of girl play time. We couldn't really do a movie because we had Chelsea to worry about, so we decided we would go get pedicures. Well, there was only one salon in the entire town and they only had one pedicurist SOOOOO that ruled that out. So the girls just hung around the cabin the whole day and got some rest. We did spend some time in the hot tub that was at the cabin and that was nice.

Day 3 was interesting to say the least. We planned to spend the day fishing. We should have known the day would be a disaster. The Stearmans are not wilderness folk. We should really stay clear of the mountains and anything related to them. We tend do better at the beach! It took literally all morning long for the guys to figure out the fishing poles and how to get the line on them. We finally made it out of the door at 1 pm and headed for the lake. No one knew where we would be going or how to choose the best place to fish and it was chaos...the blind leading the blind. To make matter WAY worse it was absolutely FREEZING. We were attempting to fish in frigid conditions and everyone was pretty much miserable. Jeff was the one and only person to catch a fish (on his first cast) and then in the process of try to get the hook out, the fish died. It was really sad. It just proved that the Stearmans have no business being out in the wild. After being out there for probably a little over an hour it started to snow and that's when all of the ladies decided to throw in the towel and go home and get some hot chocolate. So we spent the remainder of the day watching movies, and playing games.
We were hoping for better weather on day 4 and we got it! We planned to do a hike called Crystal Crag. My dad use to take us on this hike every year when we were young so we figured it would be a pretty easy hike. We packed our back packs and water bottles and headed out. It was beautiful weather so we thought we would be good to go. Probably 1/2 mile into the hike we started realizing that the trail to follow was still covered in snow from the winter. We thought we could try and cut a few corners and find the trail again but after about a mile and a half or so of wandering around trying to find the trail, we decided to stop where we were and eat the lunch we had packed. After lunch and a few pictures we headed back down. It made for a much shorter day. Again, we spent the rest of the day movie watching, hot tubing, playing games and napping. All the relaxing that was done was sooo nice.

The next day we had to pack up and leave. Before heading out in our separate directions we stopped at this super cute little restaurant called "The Stove" for a quick breakfast. I've never seen such huge food portions in my life. WOW! The biggest pancakes I've ever seen! But it was excellent food and fun to be together as a family one last time. After breakfast, Brad, Chelsea and I said our good byes and made the long trek back to Utah.

It was such a fun trip (even though the weather didn't cooperate and the hike got cut short) and I'm so glad my parents planned this great vacation so that we could spend some time together as a family.