Lake Powell!

Riding the boat roller coaster!

Put your hands in the air! Dad did a great job of finding bumps for the kids!

Brandon's photo shoot...

Sydney being funny!

Tubing!

Since we didn't go anywhere during this crazy summer, Mike decided we needed to take the kids to Lake Powell for the weekend!

We headed out on Thursday night, stayed in Kanab, and then on Friday drove the rest of the way to Wahweep! We brought Max along and so the first night in the hotel was a little strange, as he usually sleeps outside. To be inside with us was more excitement than this 8 month old could handle and Mike ended up taking him out for walks at 4am!

Don't get used to this, Max. No dogs on the beds or furniture at our house!

We got to Wahweep around 10am, and got on the water about 10:30a or 11am. While the kids and I were in the boat waiting for Mike to come back from parking the car and trailer, a strange sound which sounded like the fan belt on your car disturbed the peacefulness of the morning. It stopped after about 30 seconds, so we just told Mike when we picked him up. He said, well, let's go and we'll just listen. He put the boat in gear and the alarm goes off and the boat will not move! Thinking it was the impeller, Mikey opened the engine to check it out. Pretty soon, a family from Herriman stopped and talked with Mike and agreed that it was the impeller. They towed us back to the dock (good thing we were only out as far as the 'no-wake' bouy) and even helped us walk the boat onto the trailer! So, we had only been in Powell for about an hour and so far, it wasn't that fun!

Once we loaded the boat, we headed into Page, AZ, to find the boat mechanic that our Herriman friend had recommended. The mechanic agreed that it was the impeller and told us they could work on it. We spent the next 4 hours in Page. It's kind of a dumpy city. Sorry for any Page residents....we spent a little time at the park and had to steer the kids away from the teen-agers sluffing school and 'appreciating' each other on a blanket. Whew....

Soon, we were back on the lake. We had a good couple of hours and really enjoyed finally getting the water! We decided to head back when it was starting to get dark. We dropped Mike at the dock and waited for him to back the trailer in. He came in a little crooked and since he hasn't even done that before, I wasn't sure what to do.....so I just put the boat on the trailer. Except, that it didn't go on the trailer, it kind of turned. Not good. So, in an attempt to get it off, I backed-up....and tore off one of the trailer runners that goes underneath the boat. YIKES! Really, could this day get worse? Yes, as Mike was trying to fix it enough to get us off the lake (with the assistance of other boaters...yes, this was extremely embarrasing for me), he backed the trailer back down without taking the tool kit off the trailer. So, then we lost 90% of the tools in the lake! We were just relieved to get back to our hotel room.

So, the next day, we tried again after Mike went shopping for a new drill, new tool box and everything needed to fix the boat trailer. We really did everything very slowly and carefully this day, hoping not to extend our streak of baaaad luck! We put the boat in the water very carefully! Amanda stayed with Mike to help out. Soon, he had it fixed and we were on our way. Luckily, everything went great the rest of the trip!

The kids tubed and we tubed with the kids. We found shade and went swimming. We found a beach and Mike threw Max in the water. At first, since we were all spread out along the beach and in the water, he didn't know where to swim. He even tried to swim back to the boat. But, finally we showed him where to swim and soon he was loving the water! He did not move at all during the night. We finally wore him out that he slept all night! We even poked him in the morning to make sure he was alive!

Late afternoon, we could see a storm brewing. So, we headed to the marina for some shelter. It was a rough ride in. The kids were really nervous and we were traveling over some white caps. We pulled the kids in from the bow and hunkered down as Mike drove us to safety! The marina was closed, but we hung out for an hour before deciding to get the boat out for the day. Mike & B took a walk through all of the houseboat rows and they were amazed to find a ton of them were occupied! Instead of heading out to find a beach, they just stayed in wet dock and boated from there. It was like a little tent city or trailer park!

Sunday morning was our last day! We decided to take a little drive in the boat and went to see the Glen Canyon Dam from the lake. The kids loved making 'dam' jokes. This is our dam picture!Next we found a beach again and played around. This time, Max, was all over getting in the water and playing with the kids. It was so relaxing and exactly what we love about Lake Powell. Seeing the kids happy and playing and being together as a family. But, there was another storm brewing and so we decided it was time to hit the road. No drama as we packed up, changed out of our swimsuits into clothes and got on the road. Mike was so tired at this point that we stopped in Kanab to get some lunch and let Mike sleep for about a half hour. There wasn't a lot of resting down-time for him this trip, unfortunately. But we loved going and hope we made memories that the kids will remember happily!