~Lake Powell~

Lake Powell with these fun families has become one of my favorite vacations.  We always have so much fun, the scenery is beautiful, and everyone gets along so well.  This year we decided to send all the boys down early to load the houseboat with all the big stuff, then the rest of us would head down after church.  It actually worked out pretty nice.

We stayed the night in the hotel, then headed out early the following morning.

We were hoping to get our same spot as last year, but we weren't so lucky.  Most spots were taken, I think everyone was headed down for the 4th of July holiday.  We had an ok spot.  It wasn't bad, but wasn't the best.  As we were anchoring the houseboat onto the rocks, Bart found and killed a rattlesnake.  After that, no one really went onto the rocks for fear of getting bit.  We just stuck with getting off at the back of the boat.  We still had fun, as always.  We had the trampoline, a giant lily pad, several paddle boards, more water toys than we knew what to do with, and the fun island.  We were never board.

The kids had fun having story battles.  Mainly the little kids would tell a story and then another little would try to tell a better story.  The teenagers found this extremely funny.

We had a few injuries this trip.  Slade pulled something in his leg walking down the dock from parking his truck.  He could barely walk for several days, but was a trooper and kept helping around the boats even though you knew his leg was killing him.  Lexi broke her tooth in half again on the way down, so it was sore the entire trip.  Luckily she wasn't in extreme pain.  Ashton got hurt on the tub and they ended up taking her back in to the marina to be looked at.  Luckily she was fun.  Several people got stung by something.  We couldn't tell if it was flying in the air or something in the water, but Skylar, Garrett and others got stung by something.  Even though we had injuries, we didn't let that keep us from having fun.  On the 4th of July, Nate, Cam, and Kyle dressed up in red, white, and blue speedos and wakeboarded behind the boat to the Star Spangled Banner.  They drove up and down the canyons, getting pretty close to other houseboats, and yelling through the megaphone "Happy 4th of July"  It was hilarious!!! (and disturbing at the same time, lol)

We ended the night with an amazing firework show to celebrate the 4th.

We also had boat issues this trip.  Slade's boat just stopped working completely, and Brian's boat kept running out of gas and locking up while he was out in the channel so he'd have to get towed back to the house boat.  We joked that someone had a voodoo doll and was trying to ruin our trip.  We didn't let it ruin the trip.  Luckily, Slade's boat just ended up being a wire had come loose, so it was an easy fix.

We celebrated Bart's 40th birthday down there.

We had many mishaps with the flytraps.  Several people got snagged by them, lol.

Hunter wakeboarding

We had to find a spot to do our cliff jumping, this year we didn't have one right by the boat like last year.

One night it got pretty windy.  The trampoline blew away and Bart and Slade ended up having to swim down the canyon to catch it.  The girls decided after that to sleep inside.

This place it heaven on earth.  We love Lake Powell!!