Lake Powell - Day 1

Sorry Ryan, this is going to have to be broken up into separate days...530 pictures is too hard to chose from, so...

Four boats, 6 cars/trucks/vans, enough gas to support a small country, 31 "Strongs" and 1 "helper", three (filthy) housekeeping trailers at Bullfrog for chaos central, water toys and coolers filled to the brim, multiple sightings of lizards, rock and shell collecting, exciting visits to the gift shop, barely a cloud in the sky, blazing hot temps and water like a bathtub, and that pretty much sums up our annual trip to Lake Powell.

Of course, with all family vacations you have to add in anxiety and a little screaming and crying...not always from the children :)...to make it worth all the effort in getting there. 

My family has been going to Lake Powell for the last 30 years...never a year skipped...and I'm so grateful to my parents who have emptied their pockets and wallets, year after year to make it possible for all six of us kids, growing to 37 of us at final count, to be able to keep this tradition.  We started out in 2 lodge rooms and all fitting into one car/van...even fitting in my "ghetto blaster" so that I could listen to Mariah Carey with the detachable speakers pressed against my ears (L.o.s.e.r. with a capital L!!).  Break downs, stops at the hole in the rock store, and motorcycle wreck victims have all been part of our historical trips to Lake Powell.

It's so fun to see our kids all enjoying it now like we used to.  It's not as much fun for us adults who now realize that it takes a lot of work to pull a vacation this massive off.

We were missing some very much loved family members on this trip.  Brad and Lezlee and their boys Luke and Cole and Holly's Brad, all weren't able to come.  So we all teased Will that he drove the polygamist boat...me, Holly and a girl that came to help Holly, and seven kids...and Will.

Day 1 was mostly spent caravaning down,  but we miraculously left in enough time to get everything unloaded and head down to the lake for a little afternoon water fun.  The kids mostly wanted to get in the water and swim around.

I wonder what people think about all these kids spilling out of two boats...hmmmm, are we in Utah?

Ryan got in the way of my picture of Steven's legs...

I remember being a lot younger (like 20 or so years ago, sheesh!) and screaming with Jill and Beckie as soon as we got in the water.  Our technique was to scare away all the fish in our general area, if not in the entire lake.  Heaven forbid that a fish in a lake come near us! These kids are much braver then we used to be.

We let the kids get out, and by kids I mean Kristy and the kids, and they climbed to the top of a rock, which doesn't look very big unless you see how tiny they are against it.  I took my job as picture taker very seriously this year and only entered the water when I couldn't stand the heat anymore.

Documentation, first...recreation, second!

mmmmmm, my man!

And then Steven had to go and steal Halle's nose, but she was okay with it.