Lake Powell Take Two....

The continuing saga of Lake Powell....

We took a couple of excursions out on the deck boat...one day we headed over to Labyrinth Canyon.....we made it as far as the boat could go and then the kids decided to jump out onto the rock walls...first attempt - Daniel literally slid into the water, but we found a spot that wasn't quite so steep and even the dog made it....they clambered over the rocks and found some "quick sand" (basically smelly mud) that they found oh so fun.....

The next day we headed out to Rainbow Bridge.....it's quite the ride in the boat and we were all bundled up from the wind......

but Lake Powell is pretty beautiful....

 as always, Rainbow Bridge never disappoints....I even made it the 1/2 mile hike with my boot :)

We made it all the way back to Padre Bay when our deck boat kinda quit on us (apparently the engine died...) and there we all were floating in the middle of a massive lake.....we barely had time to look around and there was a tow boat passing right by us.....the kids flagged him down and he towed us right back to our houseboat...talk about small miracles!!

And here's a few more random pics to leave with you.....Love Lake Powell:))
If you want to see more Lake Powell adventures, take a look at THIS and THIS.

Lake Powell 1st attempt...

We had way to much fun to fit it all in one post so just bear with me....and watch out for Lake Powell take two:)

Getting to Lake Powell with a broken toe and an ugly "walking boot" was a little more complicated than normal, so with a couple of days delay and a little extra help from the kids and Andrew, we finally pulled everything together and squeezed ourselves into the car....

I have to say that having a broken toe has its advantages....such as being waited on hand and foot by the family....ok that didn't quite happen....but I did get to do a lot of this....

and I never got thrown into the lake or spun off the back of a jet ski....so all a plus really:)

What a fun filled week....we met up with a whole houseboat full of friends from home the first day and the kids got to have some crazy fun together....

And then the Jensens made it down to come and hang out with us for the rest of the week....we go way back with these guys.....Andrew served his mission with both of them years (and years...) ago and then we got to live right by each other in Georgia.....let's just say Andrew and Merlin spent a lot of the week doing this...

they were the in-house entertainment for us all:)

Merlin is ever so slightly obsessed with sticking his tongue out for every photo....

and they have definitely been married too long as Shannon is adopting his pose of choice too:)

The kids all spent hours fishing...(with just one fishing rod).....and naturally they had to find a lone rock in the middle of the lake to fish from....

But it must have been a lucky rock as the caught, gutted, cooked and then ate (and enjoyed eating) the fish....

As we were sitting round the fire on the beach one night....

eating s'mores....

and generally enjoying ourselves,...Abbie ran back to the boat to grab something and a mouse ran across the back of the boat....after a little screaming and mouse chasing (to no avail) the boys came up with numerous mouse trap plans....this was the most elaborate...

 Merlin was highly convinced it was going to work...

Andrew should have made the bet with him.....the kids were all disappointed that none of the various contraptions worked.....I was kinda relieved....what exactly was I supposed to do with a bucketful of live mice anyway??

I'll leave you with a little bit of "this" and "that".....

Come back for more crazy adventures:)

Birthdays....

My girls are 4 years and 8 days apart....and those 8 days were no accident...I cried and begged and pleaded with my OB to make sure my baby came at least a week before her sister's birthday....but so far my girls love that their birthdays are so close together and will do the whole joint birthday party thing (which is great for me!!)

We had a little pool party with about 32 little girls.....dancing, games, food and a lot of girl screaming.....the girls had fun:))

 Traditional ice cream cake....

Lunch out with the girls on their actual birthdays....(chick fil a - restaurant of choice.....and free ice cream from Frost!)

Fun week for mom too....love my cute girls xx

Chauffeur

I have one....and he is very cute and very happy to drive me anywhere I want (gotta love kids with a permit!)

San Fran....

Very fun place to explore....

the queues for riding these trolleys were unbelievably long....but it was quite the experience....in between the burning metal smell and the grouchy trolley drivers (though I might be grouchy if I had their job too - it's pretty labor intensive) and hanging from the sides....it just has to be done at least once in your life!

and we spent way too long here....trying to figure out how to get a picture of the most crooked (and pretty steep to boot) road in the world (which I haven't fact checked by the way) ....well we didn't manage a photo (believe me I tried but with all the flowers and the steepness and any other lame excuses you'd like to insert right here for me, it just didn't work out) but we did get a crazy taxi driver to drive us down it (he drove as fast as he could and I thought we were going to die....)