Lake Powell 2008

When my mom was pregnant with Madison, we began one of my all-time favorite family vacations. It is a place, as my dad once said, that every child enjoys and has something to do/play. Lake Powell has the best jetski canyon rides, slot canyon hikes, relatively warm water, good inlets off the channel to provide exceptional wakeboarding/skiing, tour boat wakes to jump, tube wars, and plenty of good food. This year was no different. I would only make one change-get there before Wed evening. Weather was warm, family was fun and the relaxation was great. We even got to watch the Hot Dog eating contest on ESPN together. The American won, in overtime.

The view from the beach near cookie jar where we stayed.

Asha Paige and Steph
Steph going down slide. Only the strong survive.
Trent pulling Maddy and her friend Lindsey on the tube.

Lindsey, B, Maddy-checking out our neighbors (who acutally are our neighbors back home as well).
Maddy and Lindsey going big.

Relaxing
Trent and I took Brenden out on the beach to play in the water and sand. He loved it and didn't want to go back inside.

Brenden looks like a duck and Trent looks like ...hmm, don't quite know.

B and Trent on the playa next to the houseboat.
My Dad was playing with Brenden right after I took Brenden's pjs off. Doesn't everyone's Dad put infant pj pants on their head?

Now Brenden's turn. (Personally, I thought it looked better on Dad).
Doing some leg exercises.


We had pulled away from the beach on our way back to the marina and this is looking at our neighbors houseboat with the black, charred spot up a little ways where a little "firework accident" took place. It winds around the canyon rock there and was a good size burn. It looks about half the width of the houseboat in the pic, but take into account you have to go even further up which makes the area seem smaller than actual size. It was actually quite scary at the time with a bunch of people from both houseboats running out there with shovels and fire extinguishers and my Dad organizing everyone to dig a perimeter downwind from the fire to keep it from spreading to the houseboats and people in tents below. He originally had us all digging (Trent, John, Steph, Scott, Dad, Jeremy, Hank, Chris, Maddy, Lindsey, and Me)-even with our feet-closer to the fire but it caught too quickly to the brush, so we had to go down further. After it was all contained, Dad told us all to go back to the houseboats cause the firework show was not over. I laughed. Maybe it's just a girl thing to think that when we almost burn down the mountain and put several people in danger that we should stop and call it done. It was a great show-thanks to Scott for going to the Indian Res to buy the illegal/good stuff. The following day the people in the tents came over to ask if we were Mormon. We said yes, and he said he thought so because "anyone else trying to put that fire out would have been cussing and swearing all over". Nice compliment. It was a great time and we were sad to leave, again.