More Powell

Kate & Sydney found a 'cliff' to jump!

Sydney and me in a 'cave' just before the big thunderstorm!

The next day, Dad & Roger had to fix the boat. So, we picked up Kate & Elyse and headed onto the lake. We went by the dam to do some dam tubing.

We got our one tube fixed so that the kids could double-tube. They loved it! Amanda and Sydney would jump over to each other's tubes. Everyone else was a little to scared to try it.

Cute cousins! Elyse was fine as long as Uncle Mike was driving slow.

Slow driving made Amanda bored....but, she was a good sport.

Doing some tricks!

We couldn't talk Brandon into getting on the tubes today, but he was a great lookout! We went to Antelope Point for lunch and waited for my family to come after getting the boat fixed. The kids played on the swim deck forever. They made up a game where one person would be judge and pick a theme....say like trees. Then, each kid would do an impression of a tree as they walked down the diving platform. Garrett even got into it by showing me his 'Canyonball!' When we left here we explored some canyons in Navajo Canyon. We got another thunderstorm. We hid out in a cove, consoled kids and played while we waited out the storm. It was the loudest thunder I have ever heard! Awesome!!

Powell.....

So, we decided to start heading back to get off the lake. A storm was approaching! Pretty soon, we were in the middle of a churning lake. Look how green this water looks!

We were getting pretty close to the marina when my Dad's boat starting having problems again. It just wouldn't go fast. So, our progress was slowed to almost a halt. Mike would drive ahead a little and then wait for them because it was hard to drive that slow.

The kids hunkered down. They get pretty nervous in storms. But, we gave them some treats (since it was dinnertime), covered them with towels and they seemed pretty content.

At one point, we lost my family for a minute. They pulled onto a beach because the boat was making loud knocking sounds. We doubled-back and found them and then headed back into the marina. We made it safe and sound and were able to get the boats off the lake without any problems. A quick dinner and then it was off to bed!

Lake Powell Part 2

It wasn't as hard to leave Lake Powell in June because we knew we would be back in 3 weeks with my family! We left on Saturday morning after Amanda's soccer practice, met up with Mike's parents who also came along, gave them a couple of kids to drive in their car, and hit the highway! We got into Page in time for dinner and we headed over to Canyon King. I may have called it Canyon Queen before, but the kids were right.....it's a King....

My parents and Roger's family camped in the Wahweep campground. On Sunday morning, we hit the lake! First stop was the sand hill. The kids had a great time on it (pictures are at the bottom of this post-I'm having a heck of a time getting things to work with the new computer. My learning curve is slower than it used to be!). Rog & Cozette as well as their kids and a couple of ours climbed to the top! I opted out since my 'procedure' was only 5 days earlier. It was a great time. But, our main goal for the day was Rainbow Bridge, so we got going.

Here is our family plus Julia Larsen (we let Amanda bring a friend this time) and Rog's family at Rainbow Bridge. You can see we made it eventually, but not without my Dad's boat having issues. They were way low on oil, so they sat in the channel and we ran to Dangling Rope for oil.....that did the trick we thought, so onward and upward!

We listened to the park ranger this time. He told us some great stories. He showed us the dino track in the rock. The toes are by the kids toes. He also told us an Indian story about how Rainbow Bridge came to be because of some young boys that were picking on a lizard, called for help from the Sky Father and then the Sky Father petrified a Rainbow and the lizard.

Cute story!

It's a beautiful place and the water is so high that the hike is super short!!! Because of the boat problems, we arrived in the late afternoon and it wasn't crowded at all. It's a great time to visit! Afterward, we explored and went swimming before heading back as the sky turned dark...more on that to come.

Here are the pictures that should be at the top! Here are the stranded Gibsons!

And, here is what they were doing when we arrived with the oil.....taking a dip because it was HOT!

Here's Julia and Amanda cooling off!

Nicole and Casey invited us over for an after parade lunch again this year. Nicole does a great job and our kids love to hang at her house. After lunch when it got a little darker, we got ready for the fireworks show! This year, Utah legalized some aerial fireworks...and that was good news in our neighborhood! Even with the new law, however, some guys went to Evanston and got the illegals. Casey ended up with a few of those...including these roman candles. The kids loved them, but I was totally nervous that they would look into the top when it wasn't finished.

Luckily, we escaped without injury! Below is a picture of part of our group. Casey's parents and Mike's parents came for the show and the entire Brown family as well as the Morgans!

Mikey with his fireworks. Our firework titled 'Loud and Rowdy' was just as good as the illegal aerials! Later, Amanda and I slipped around the corner to the Jensen's street to check out their festivities. We should just combine our shows, but never have...maybe next year.

I thought this picture of Kash watching the fireworks was so cute! Happy 4th of July!!!

Saturday before, Mike and I took the kids on a drive to check water levels at Echo and then to lunch at Taggarts. While there, we asked the kids if they knew what we celebrate on the 4th of July. They couldn't say exactly, so we had a great discussion. We also talked about the pioneers since July party #2 is on the 24th. Great day!

Fourth of July Festivities

A Kaysville 4th! Amanda had a Personal Progress project to train and run in a 5k race. The race she planned for was the city 5k. She needed someone to run with and since neither Mike nor I are in shape enough to do it, she called her friend, Liz. Problem is that Liz doesn't run! She told Amanda she would try, but when it came right down to it, she walked the whole thing up until we yelled at them to run to the finish line!

Amanda kept trying to get her run and even said she'd meet her at the finish, but that wasn't going to happen today. Oh well.....They had fun anyway....Mike & I decided that we will have to run it as a family next year...

Cute girls!

Next was the parade. Mike and one of our neighbors went out at 12am to stake out a spot. They did a great job as we had front row seating. Sydney was in the parade this year with her cheerleading studio. I had to go drop her off and walked about 2 miles round trip. By the time I reached our spot, the parade was about to start. Brandon is sad in these pictures because he can't get any candy before the big kids grab it....

But, by this point, we started to get some.

Here's the float for Amanda's new jr. high school. We knew quite a few kids on this float and it was fun to cheer for our new school!

Here is Sydney's float....

And here is Sydney! She is the blondie on the left standing facing the camera. She had a blast being on the float. Totally her thing...

She was dancing and waving and having a great time!

I had to walk to pick her up before the parade was over and when we got back, the water fight portion of the parade was in full swing! They bring out the street sweepers, fire trucks, etc and everyone goes crazy! Brandon was loving this part this year!

Tons of fun! Happy 4th!

See?

See? This is what I was telling you about in my earlier Powell posts. Brandon is asleep as we drive in the boat, but he is still hanging on to the handle! He's so cute!!!

TMI? Skip it if you don't want details...

So, this may be more info than the reader needs, but remember it's my family journal, so you get all the details!

The Tuesday after we returned from Lake Powell, I had a little surgery to get some permanent birth control. Mike and I have been discussing having more kids for awhile and it just didn't seem to work out. Eventually, we decided that we have our beautiful children here. Although, we are very sad not to have had more because we are enjoying our kids so much.

Mike was going to take care of making sure there weren't any surprise babies, but his schedule is so busy, this wouldn't happen until September and maybe even later. Since I have more time to recuperate, I decided that I would take on this responsibility!

The biggest concern for me was that I hadn't ever been under...not for wisdom teeth or anything. But, things went well and I was up and at my regular routine the next day. The funny part about this is I have gone to a new ob/gyn that my friend had recommended and he ended up to be the brother of a friend of mine from AT&T! They look very similar and even talk the same, so it was funny. When Mike met him the day of my surgery, he said it was like talking to Sean. When I came out of surgery, I kept repeating the same story to Mike about 4 times before I even realized I was awake. That was weird. I also told someone, 'No More Babies' and when I asked Mike if I told him that, he said no. Then, I started to cry.....My recovery nurse was sweet and handed me a tissue and told me that it's ok because this is emotional.

Part two of this story is that I went back this week for an ablation. Now, my anesthesiologist recognized our last name as a former mission companion of his. We told him we would probably know his comp because there are only 7 Arveseth's that had served missions and we figured out he knew Scott! He had high praise for Scott and said he really respected him and wanted us to tell Scott he'd love to get in touch sometime. He told me his number is in the phone book and which street he lives on! Seriously, everyone knows everyone in Davis County. This is a close-knit community which we are now starting to appreciate. I woke up better from being under this time and Mike kept teasing me trying to get me to repeat the same story over and over again, but I was with it this time!!!!

This surgery was a little rougher and I really haven't felt well until today. The pain was so bad on the day of surgery and I ended up taking the heavy pain killers (that I didn't need with the last one). Then, I started throwing up! Mike had gone back to work when he had me all settled and Amanda was a great nurse! She checked on me every few minutes, kept the kitchen clean and stood by me while I puked. What a lucky Mom I am to have her!

My sweet friends, Nicole and Emily made sure our family had fabulous yummy dinners for two nights and have been ready at any moment to help. I'm lucky to have such cute friends that put up with what a nerd I am!

So there we are! I'm finally feeling back to normal and am able to just take a little ibuprofen to get through the day. My other friend, Elise, had surgery the day after me and so I'm off in a little while to pay the kindness forward and make her some of my guac!

Lake Powell cont....

Reed and his family in their boat...

We found this cool little canyon with this perfect kid size cliff for jumping!

Everyone took a turn!

Here is B doing some more bow jumping...sisters cheering him on!

As we boated around exploring, Reed informed us that he just looked at his gas tank and he had about 1/8 left! So, he headed back, we did a little more exploring before heading back to the marina. Along the way, we found the Laws floating in the channel...out of gas!

We hooked them up...again...and started towing them back. We were low on gas, so we decided to drop them somewhere safe and then head to Antelope Marina for some gas. This place was awesome! We'd never been there before. It's like a resort....granite in the bathrooms....huge sit down sports grill with tvs and leather couches. Big old store and even an ice cream and bakery shop! The last day we went back here and had lunch, let the kids play, shopped...we spent about 3 hours there! It was really fun!

Back to before: We filled up. We were unable to find a gas can to buy, so we hurried back to tow the Laws. They had been having a great time playing while they were waiting!

We decided just to tow them back to the marina and pull them onto the trailer with a rope. As we were driving along, we started seeing carrots fly by! Reed had started a carrot war! The kids were eating this up...thought it was so much fun!

It made the tow trip not so slow.....We ended up eating dinner at the Canyon Queen (?) in Page. Yummy pasta, pizza...Amanda had a little heatstroke, so we were having her pound her water, take some ibuprofen and get some food in her. She felt better after a bit. We need to remember she is pretty prone to getting heatstroke. Once while camping with my parents, she got heatstroke. We took care of her in their motorhome, had her take a nap and had to laugh when she got up from that nap and went to the closet to pee.....good thing we were just standing right there or there would have been quite the mess to clean up!

We left on Sunday morning. We needed to get home to pick up Max by 5:30pm. Seems we had to stop about every hour for something along the way. Made for a long drive home, but we were happy to be together as a family having just enjoyed a wonderful trip to our favorite place!

More Lake Powell

The next day we did a Dam tour! This is the time that we let the kids talk about the dam in every context and they go crazy! So, here is the dam picture of my dam family!

Then, we did some dam swimming! Brandon wouldn't get in the water, or jump of the bow of the dam boat until he got Dad, Manda and me to give him some $ for doing it. Mike offered him $10, so did Amanda and I said $2. Of course he jumped. He's been saving up for a new Wii game and figured he'd make some progress toward his goal with this jump! Smart kid for a 6 year old...

We then took the Laws to an awesome beach we had found last year with Francis'....but that beach was under water. Mikaela and Max got out to swim and we told them about the Tiger Muskee's that like to bite your toes. Not long after that, some debris in the water hit Kaela's leg or something and she and Max freaked out....they swam so fast back to their boat! We felt bad for making them so scared of the fish, but it was pretty funny.....

We then found this great beach just off the channel. We got all the boat waves so the kids could bodysurf (with life jackets on), and there was this fun beach to climb on (the sand was sooo hot) and dig in.

We had lunch and played here for awhile.

And Mikey took a little nap....then the wind picked up again and was blowing sand everywhere so we left and explored a little more....

Brandon with the water gun ready to play....

My handsome boys!