Lake Powell Part 2

Ok, so we finally found a spot that we planned to stay at for the rest of our trip.  We were on our fourth night by then.  The spot was nice, but it was at the mouth of a canyon so there was a lot of small boat traffic, which meant a lot of waves for us.  It wasn't a big deal though.  

Here is our boat tucked in its little cove.  I liked that there were lots of areas to hike around.  We went on two hikes while we were there.

We had a little bucket of water for the kids to wash their feet off in when they came on the boat from the beach.  I am in love with this picture of Max.  Too cute.

 We took the boys on a hike one morning. It was really fun.  Everything is fun when you are with Uncle Jeff.  He showed the boys cool animal tracks, found animal bones, found lizards, etc.  The boys loved it.

 We took the little boat out each day to surf and wakeboard.  We also did some tubing and went on a few scenic drives in the boat.

Here is Mike surfing.

Me surfing.  It was my first time.  I had to hold onto the rope most of the time.  It was a lot of fun.

Mike and I jumped off this big cliff.  I said I wasn't going to, because I am must less adventurous these days, but when I got up there I decided at the last second to just go for it.  If I had given those below more warning I would have had a pic too.

Ez caught a fish.

The guys tried for a long time to shoot a fish with the bow. Mike finally caught one with the bow, and Jeff did later also.  We also enjoyed shooting the potato gun filled with a potato and an explosive.  We are really mature :)

I wish I had taken a picture on the top of the boat.  It had lots of lounge chairs and it was so nice to sit up there and relax.  It is also where Jan and Grandpa slept.  In the old houseboat, everyone slept up top, so that is the only way Grandpa likes to sleep.  Jason and I slept on the top one night and it was so nice.  The stars are so bright when there are no lights around, it was beautiful.

Michelle, Jenny, and me on our pleasure craft :)

 Our family going on a tube ride.  Ollie LOVED riding on the tube.  The first time we did it he kept saying "this is the best day ever".  

 Michelle and Taylor, Jen and Ez enjoying a boat ride.

 The boys loved wrestling with uncle Mike.  

On one of our scenic boat rides, Max and Ez fell asleep.  Our kids slept pretty well on this trip because they were so worn out at the end of each day.

 On one of our hikes Grandpa beat us to the top.

A cool crevice we found.

We buzzed Ollie's hair. He has the cutest little head.  I'm glad we did it on our last day, I was worried about it getting sunburned.

 Ollie wearing Shelley's sun hat.

 Michelle wake boarding.  Mike, Eric and I also wake boarded.  Jan and Grandpa both slalom skied.  Grandpa is almost 87 years old and he was able to get up.  It was awesome.  

We weaned Max off his binky at 18 month, but with everything going on we let him use it while we drove and while we were at Lake Powell (as soon as we got home it was gone for good).  Ollie was being so sweet with Max, talking nicely to him and giving him kisses.

The boys enjoying popsicles.

The rest of the week went pretty smoothly.  We had a few other issues, but the guys were able to figure it out pretty quickly.  We had a lot of fun.  I love being all together with Jason's family, we always have a great time.  

We drove back Friday morning to Jenny and Jeff's house, stayed the night there and then made the final push home the next day.  Friday night Jeff took the boys on a four wheeler ride.  It was heaven for three little boys (four if you include Jeff). 

Next year I want to remember to take a group pic of everyone at Lake Powell.  I also want to remember to take a pic of the grandkids before the morning we leave to go home.  Taylor is so loved by her cousins.  I can't wait to see them all grow up together.

Saturday was a long day of driving.  We took the camping trailer home and so we averaged about 60 mph.  It was slow going.  Not to mention we can only go about 2-2 1/2 hours before we have to get gas.  That makes for a lot of little stops, but we made it!  The boys did great, they were real troopers.  We wanted to hurry home because my mom was speaking in stake conference (she was recently called as stake RS pres).  It was so nice to be able to see my family.  I missed them while we were gone.  We are so happy to be home and are even more in love with our house.  It is like I re-fell in love with my house.  I think we will look forward to ND each year, and we will look forward to coming home from ND each year as well. 

Lake Powell

We have had an eventful past couple of weeks.  We left Gackle two and a half weeks ago.  From there we drove to Lehi Utah, where Jason's sister Jenny's lives.  From there we drove 5 hours down to Lake Powell where we spent a week on a houseboat.  I'll just explain what we did with pictures, it is easier that way.

We took two days to drive from ND to UT.  Tuesday night we stopped in Billings, MT and found an RV park.  Did I mention we were towing our travel trailer and could only go approx 60 mph?  It was slow going for sure.  RV camping is so fun because most parks have a pool and a play structure for kids.  The boys loved having somewhere to get their wiggles out after a long drive.

The next leg of our trip was to Blackfoot, ID.  We stopped along the way in Bozeman, MT to have a picnic.  I really liked Bozeman.  When I mentioned how nice it was to someone they said "Yeah a bunch of Californians came out and tried to turn it into California".  I guess that is why I liked it so much :)

We also found out that Paul and Amy were going to Yellowstone and we would be passing them.  We were so excited!!  We met them in Rexburg and visited for a bit.  It was fun to see them.  Amy took our family picture in front of the temple in a cool wheat field.  Amy was excited to see a wheat field, I told her we had been looking at them all summer long in ND :)  We look pretty rugged from all the driving, but I'm happy to have these pictures.

We spent the night at Jason's grandparents house in Blackfoot, then left early Thursday to get to UT.  It was so fun to see all of Jason's siblings and I wish so badly that we all lived closer.  This is our adorable (and chubby) niece Taylor.  She is the sweetest baby and was definitely the most well behaved child on our Lake Powell trip.

We left Friday morning for Lake Powell.  The boys left early so they could get there and load the boat before we got there.  Mike drank his huge Mt. Dew to prepare for the drive.

 Me, my boys, Eric, Michelle and Taylor all rode together.  All the kids did surprisingly well, especially considering how much my kids had been in the car.  Eric was loving life back there with Ollie.  We caught them having many deep conversations.

 This was our boat named,/ "Something Divine".  She is a beauty, but she gave us so many headaches on this trip, more on that later.

 Jenny, Ez and Taylor.  Taylor received SO much attention from her three cousins.  They could not get enough.

We took the boys on a walk around the marina that night to see all the boats.

Later that evening some of us went on a boat ride to make sure everything was working properly on the little boat since it had been in the shop until the day before we left.  Well things didn't work and we ended up stranded.  We had a walkie talkie and so I'm sure Jason could have found someone to come save us, but there was a passing boat that towed us back to our slip.  That was just the beginning of our boat problems.  Mike fixed the little boat the next morning when he found a blown fuse.

Getting towed.

Ez and Grandpa.

Max loved "driving" the house boat.

 The next day we drove the house boat about 30 miles (approx 3-4 hours) to a spot that Mike and Jeff found for us.  It was a good spot.  Along the way we stopped for a swim.  

The Teichert family.  Taylor was so comfy in her floaty that she fell asleep.

Jeff and Jen.

Mike bought a jet ski for the trip.  It was really fun to ride before it broke :(  Eric took Ollie along for a ride.

Me riding the jet ski.  It was a stand up so it was a little tricky to figure out.

Ollie had fun digging in the hole where the anchor was.

Almost immediately after we stopped, we started having problems with the boat's generator.  When the generator wasn't working we couldn't run the AC, use the bathroom or the refrigerators and freezers, so yeah, it is kind of a big deal.  The guys got it working, but the next day it broke again.  We decided to head back to the marina so our food wouldn't spoil, and so they guys could try to figure out what was going on.  We stayed one night in the marina and the next morning they talked to the guy who maintains the boat and figured out what they needed to do.  It wasn't fixed by any means, but we knew how to temporarily fix the vapor-lock issue.

Ollie asleep on the floor on our way back to the marina.  We couldn't run the air conditioner so it was HOT!

Jen, Jason, Jan, Grandpa and I took the kids to a little beach where we planned to spend the night.  It was pretty close to the marina so if we continued to have problems we could take care of them.

 Max on the boat.  We tried to make the kids wear their floaties anytime they weren't inside the boat.

This is where the boys spent a lot of time on the boat, eating.

 We got settled in our new spot and spent the afternoon swimming, fishing, napping and reading.  Then the storm clouds rolled in.  The area we had picked was really sandy and they were worried our anchors wouldn't hold (which they didn't), so the guys made a mad dash to secure the boat and get us out of there before the storm blew us sideways up on the beach.  It was crazy.

Here is Ollie fishing.  You can see the storm clouds in the background.

Ollie "caught" four fish.  He was so excited each time (although not excited enough to touch the fish).

After we got out of our spot, we headed about 10 miles away and found a new spot.  This trip is crazy right?!?!  I'm going to break this up so it isn't so long.  To be continued...