July 30th -Aug 2nd we headed up to Moon Lake to have another Barber Family Reunion. It was Beautiful up there! Only thing we didn’t like was the buffalo gnats! (We cal them vampire gnats) You don’t feel them bite, but you just notice that you are bleeding. And with me, 2 days later, that bite swells up and starts to itch!
Oh Well!

Wednesday was just our family and Chet & Rachel’s family, it was nice to be able to spend some one-on-one with them the first night. We have gotten so close to them from the summer’s they have spent here, that it was wonderful just chilling together!

We did lots of fishing! On thursday we rented a boat and spent part of the day taking turns going out for rides, and we tried some fishing from the boat, with absolutely no fish!!! I took a turn driving the boat, & I didnt even get the chance to leave Mark on the shore as I drove off laughing, aahh well, maybe next year!! LOL
We had been there a month before that, with friends, and the lake since then had gone down a WHOLE LOT!!! WE drove to the damn to fish, and I said “This doesn’t look like the right place, it doesn’t look like where we were a month ago”. But it was! Apparently they have a spill way where they drain the lake during the summer to help water the farmers crops. And in the 4 days we were there, the water was still dropping at a pretty significant rate!! I think from the day we arrived to the day we left, it dropped about 4 feet. How we measured that was, we had propped up these rocks to hold fishing poles up, and when we were fishing on the last day we noticed those rocks we’d arranged right next to the water line, was 4 feet back on the beach, not right next to the water.
And for a lake that big to be able to notice that much water had been drained,…that is TONS of water they are draining!!!!
CRAZY!

We spent much of our time at the beautiful sandy beach. The kids would play in the soft beach sand and cover themselves in mud, so they could go out into the lake and rinse off and start all over again!
All the kids, and even some of the adults, had the most fun digging holes and making mud pits to play in!
Kathen, my nephew, decided he was going to get a full bath in the mud! So he laid down and bathed himself in mud!
(And to think, you can spend Hundreds of dollard to go to a day spa and have a mud bath, and here, it was FREE!)
His dad came up after a while and painted his face with the mud! He soon became camouflaged! His dad took pictures of him, with 2 kids behind him. And he thought it was hilarious to show people the picture and say “Can you see all 3 kids?” And everyone said “There is only 2 kids in this one”. Chet would just laugh and say “Look harder!”

On Friday we all got together around the camp fire: Chets family, Wendy’s family, Matt and his foster son, Camile and her daughter, Lori and her family, Kim & levi, Glen & his family, Mom and Dad, and Mark & I and our girls. We had a little program of sorts, that was very cute! There were many songs performed, and Preston, one of our nephews performed an AMAZING drum solo! WOW!!! GO PRESTON!!! And Matt’s foster son Joe showed us his guitar talents! That was neat! Wendy & Carter also played their guitar and sang! Always fun to listen to them! They sing so well together! Chets kids all sang a Mercy Me song called “Rise up”. They decided while sitting there, that they wanted to sing something too. So Chet asked if I wanted to play a Mercy me song while they sang it. This was a song I was learning and no where near perfected yet, but it was such a blast listening to his kids, and Savannah, singing that song! it was Adorable!
Heather was real cute, she gathered the kids at the beginning and at the end of the program and helped them sing primary songs! Which is really sweet, cause she has been put in as primary song director in her ward, and she is working hard to learn all those songs that she had never heard before she got her calling! GO HEATHER!

And while this was going on the kids were sitting in the dirt, and they decided to start playing with the dirt. Well, Kiera started painting her arms, then her legs, then her face with this dirt! She was soon looking like child of another nationality! It was HILARIOUS!
Kiera really took to heart the saying I have said for years “the dirtier you are, the Funner you’ve had!”
( We took pictures, and Mark will post them on the site soon!)

On Saturday we got up early and went down to the Damn to fish, just Mark and I with the girls! in about 2 1/2 hours we caught 14 fish! Just 2 fish shy of catching our limit! It was such a blast!!! That afternoon we all got together and cooked TONS of food to share! We cooked 20 fish that afternoon! (GO MARK!)
We had all kinds of wonderful food! Pork chops, chicken, fish, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, fruit, salad, and much more!! It was GREAT!
Thanks To EVERYONE! That was such a FANTASTIC smörgåsbord!

BIG Thanks for everyones hard work! This was one of the most fun, & most memorable family reunions I’ve ever had!!!!