There’s a big chunk of my heart sitting over at Lake Powell.
Dave’s too.
We adore that gorgeous spot probably more than any other spot.
Cannot get enough of these vistas:
…that transform as the sun shifts:
…and these faces:
I grew up going there every spring with my family for Easter (back
HERE, definitely not for the water sports…brrrr!) and Dave went a few times growing up too. We loved it then, but it’s developed into a pretty deeply loved place for our family through the years (greatly aided by the fact that we have some pretty great friends with houseboat connections). We didn’t take the kids when they were young and we had babies, way to scary for us. But we went as couples quite a few times. And the last few years it’s turned into a whole family thing with a group of families we love.
And we’ve discovered that Fall Break is the perfect time to take advantage of all that beauty: perfect daytime temps (and the water really wasn’t very chilly) and equilibrium evenings with the perfect amount of “crisp” to the air.
Our family arrived first this year and got situated after safely maneuvering Lucy into the houseboat in the marina slip. We had quite a story when we arrived last year when Lucy fell in the pitch black night-time water near the boat…I wrote about it back
HERE. Needless to say, Lucy clung close to us the whole time and I’m pleased to report that she was completely safe and there were no red glasses lost or Leo-the-lions losing their fluffiness 🙂
We played cards huddled all in a little room with the only light on (the generator wasn’t working right) and then fell asleep until everyone else arrived lugging suitcases with excitement. Love those reunions with all those kids.
We went to church from the slip the next morning. I think this is the prettiest church commute:
It was a really, really good meeting (testimonies) and we were all pretty inspired by the messages shared.
We meant to get a group picture to commemorate all that beauty we were still feeling inside but this is somehow all we got:
Ha!
We met up with the last couple families back at the boat and headed out to find the perfect spot.
I’ll let the pictures tell most of the rest of the story, but I’ll just add right here that it was really different this year having these kids be the oldest:
Last year most of the college-age kids came, one couple who was about to get married and one couple who promised they were “just friends” who are now married as well:). We also had a bunch of high school seniors and they were up all night with dance parties on the roof and all kinds of energy fun.
This year we missed those big kids so much and it seemed so quiet without them but it was kind of fun to be able to chill and relax with the younger ones and marvel at how big all our kids are getting.
Lucy perfected card game after card game with any partners she could muster up.
…even the big dads who let her join for a few rounds…see her bum sticking out below?
(Two extra guys in that pic…Mike’s brother Rusty who took such great care of us when we were dropping off Elle in Hawaii along with his friend showed up and hung out with us a little bit too.)
The kids found this gigantic plastic runner they decided to turn into a water slide.
They worked their hearts out all afternoon one day to make their slide:
…and lugged water up to it in buckets and used our kitchen soap to make it slippery only to have them jump on to slide down and come to a giant halt.
Haha, didn’t work so well, but they had fun in the process so it all worked out.
Here’s my girl showing me the ropes on how to get over to the little secret look-out spot around the bend:
Goodbye ’til next time, Lake Powell!
Thanks for being so good to us!
A piece of my heart lives at Lake Powell. I grew up going there too and I absolutely LOVE that place!
p.s. I love your skirt that your wearing with the green shirt can you tell me where it's from 🙂 Thanks
WOW! That looked amazing! What cute kids! You'll be thrilled to hear that we got the Mastercraft engine in tiptop shape and the inside detailed so now it looks just like that speed boat in the pictures! LOL!