Lake Powell!

We went to Lake Powell last Thursday thru Monday.  Short trip, but long enough with kids!  It took us over 7 hours to get there with stopping twice, and the kids did great with the drive.  We took a barge to the houseboat First Run at Wahweap slip.  This is a new houseboat share for my parents, and it was smaller than the last but newer and nicer.  We had AC all night as you can hook up the boat to their stuff.  We did one boat run then had dinner and got kids to bed.  Carter did....well, horrible every night we were there.  We tried to keep him quiet with toys in his own room like we do at home, but he woke up at least 4 times crying.  Chris had to sleep by him to keep him quiet for everyone else.  There are 4 bedrooms and we had him in this mini little cave room downstairs.  It has a low ceiling and one bed on each side, with curtains to keep it private.  We tried Sierra on the other side once but he woke her up.  The second night we kept him down there alone, and Sierra in her pack 'n play in one of the bathrooms.  Chris and I slept in the master, my parents in the front room or other bedroom.  We did this arrangement 1 more night, then put Carter in the front room the last night.  My brother and his friends slept on top. 

1 night was so terrible because my dad didn't keep the generator on for the AC, so it was in the 90s and we could NOT sleep.  Surprisingly the kids did, which worried me, but it was a long and horrible night.  The days were in the 100s and so hot.  Even the water was pretty warm.  To keep the kids cool, my mom brought a pool that we kept on the back deck for the kids to play in.  Carter only went in the lake once in a tube, and that didn't last long because he kept leaning forward.  Made it hard to hold him and swim.  He did great on the boat, always fell asleep right away with the rocking.  We called him the nocturnal bat because he napped so much during the day.  He was an angel during the day, but the nights were pretty terrible.  I took Sierra on a tube once, and she enjoyed being in the water or the pool.  She was everywhere so we had to emphasize to everyone- keep the doors shut!  So scary to have little kids that can move at Powell.  We had to be very vigilant. 


The best parts were tubing, wave running (a new addition with this house boat), just boating in the canyons, swimming, watching the guys rock jump and put lizards to sleep.  They do this by shooting them off the rock walls with water guns, then grab them and rub their bellies.  They fall asleep on their backs, paralyzed.  Then they return them to the water safely.

My dad also drove in the boat around us in the open water really fast, just doing circles to create huge waves.  It is so fun!  We call it the devil's cauldron.  We also had a great time playing b.s. and spoons at night when the kids were asleep.  We also floated on blow up mats and went down the slide on the house boat.  Sunday evening I was out on the wave runner with my mom, and we hurried back when we saw lightning.  Just before reaching the houseboat, the water became white caps and super wavy.  It became a very windy storm speeds up to 60 we think.  A few boats nearby us in Warm Creek were tipped over and ski boats were even halfway sunk.  As soon as it calmed down, my dad and the 3 boys went off to help people.  We ended up reuniting a mom with her son by driving her about 30 min.  We were lucky that the houseboat didn't drift away and nothing was broken.  The boys were all busy digging the anchors in deeper and tying everything up tight.  It was an adventure of mother nature.  We discovered that Sierra LOVES red vines licorice and has good sea legs.  She can walk around just fine when the boat is swaying.  So cute!

We did have an accident with Carter which was very sad.  I was vacuuming the last day before leaving for home, and Carter loves to come up and touch it.  He always gets close to it at home and nothing has happened before.  I went to move it over his head, and when I brought it back down his little foot got sucked in for a second.  Powerful vacuum!  I pulled it out and turned off the vacuum, to discover his left foot had a bunch of missing skin.  Poor guy!  He only cried a little, and we hurried and cleaned it and dressed it up.  He seems fine still but it still looks pretty raw.

We had a great time overall, good memories and great pictures.  Glad to be home though doing piles of laundry.  No sunburns either!