Best Date Night

So the best date night ever-- it included Megan and Jared, Wyatt and Lindsay Ann, a four-wheeler, a ranger, a sunset, a gun, good music blasting in the truck, good conversation about how chimpanzees will attack and rip off your face, fingers, and genitals.  It was suuuuuch a good time--I can't even explain just how carefree and happy it was just driving in the van with the music blaring and laughing and everything.

I can't remember the name of the canyon we drove up, but it had a nice view of the Salt Lake.

Wyatt and Lindsay Ann are so photogenic.  :)

Lindsay Ann loved her dear deer.

 Here's Wyatt sitting on a rock in a pensive mood.

And off.

Whooops...

Get up quick, maybe no one saw-

Lindsay saw.  :)

I remarked that Jared was giving a look that was slightly on the psychotic-killer end of the spectrum, so he gave me an even better one.

Brett taking a couple shots with the big gun.  I don't know if you can see it (click for a bigger picture), but Brett put one of the deer targets up in the tree.  Funny.

Around this time we got a phone call from my niece Danica, who was babysitting my kids-including Wyatt, and who was in tears because he had been screaming for over an hour.  Poor girl.  (By the way, when we got home she and Myles had finally gotten him to sleep.)

More jumping.

Lake Powell

So, Lake Powell.  My awesome sister Megan somewhat recently got a boat, and she was planning on a trip and graciously asked us if we wanted to come.  Of course we were in!!!

 

We  hauled the boat so that Megan and Jared could haul their trailer.  But we just took the boat with us when we went to Vernal so that we didn't have to backtrack.  We were supposed to meet Megan and Jared at the campsite on the designated evening.

Well, we got there, but unfortunately the lame plan that we had on our phone just for while we were in the States didn't have roaming, so there was no way of knowing where they were or when they would arrive or let them know where we were or anything.

So Brett got antsy to put the boat into the water so we could go find a good beach campsite.  I was completely against the idea, as it wasn't our boat and I didn't want to back up the trailer, etc. Well, Brett didn't listen to me, and he launched the boat (by himself), and we got out onto the water and Hazel and Ethne's hats promptly flew off into the water, and Brett said, "Now I realize the flaw in my plan."  Which was that even if we found a good place to camp, and he left us there, and then took the boat back so he could get the suburban, he couldn't then get the boat back to our campsite... basically we had to have another person that could drive.  So, launching the boat had been a waste of time and not only that, but as we were looking along the shoreline, the boat hit the ground and we thought we had broken something.  That made Brett very very worried.  (He even said he dreamed all night about telling Megan and Jared that he broke their boat.)

So we were in bad moods (to say the least).  Then we just decided to set up our tent as near to the entrance of the campsite as possible, so that when Megan and Jared came in--whenever that was--they would hopefully see us as they passed by us.  Well, Brett got the tent out that he had borrowed from his dad's house, and found that not only did it have no poles with it, but it was also extremely mildewed and molded and the zipper was rusted shut.  He was very not impressed.

We ended up just laying the tent out on the ground and laying our sleeping bags on top of it and sleeping there.  Luckily there were no bugs at all.  However, I did wake up in the middle of the night because some animal was sniffing around my head.  I woke up Brett and he looked and said it looked like a fox or something.  He turned on the lamp and it ran off.  I made him switch me spots so that he was on the outside.

This is a picture of us in the morning.

In answer to my fervent prayers, it didn't take long to find Megan and Jared the next morning.  They had gotten in very late, and it had been dark and they hadn't seen us, but they came looking for us as Brett went looking for them and they ran into each other luckily.

We went and got the boat checked out and it was fine, and we found a camp spot and etc. etc. and eventually we were all ready and we got into the boat and got out on the water!!!!!!



It was glorious.  I'm not even kidding.  It was the most wonderful day!  We cranked the music up and sped around the water, took in the view, dove in and swam, let the kids tube.  It was soooo much fun!

That's me and Megan and Danica in the little cave thingee.

Then we went into this little cove with cool skeleton trees all over, and Brett, Jethro, Danica, Lynnaea and I walked to some Indian ruins.  (Not all the kids wanted to hike, so Megan being the sweet sister she is, took Wyatt and told me to go.)  They were really really cool, and the little valley they were in was cool too.

Then we tubed our merry way home.

I forgot to mention that my sister Amy and her family were also going to be coming from Arizona, but they weren't getting there until a bit later.  Also, the ferry was closed, so we had to take them across on the boat, which was fine, except we didn't know just when they had arrived and they ended up waiting quite a long time for us and were ticked.

But, we got them over and they got all their stuff unpacked and tents set up and we made some dinner and fed kids and got them to bed and all that kind of good stuff.

This is a group of girls the next morning getting their hair braided.

Amy and her husband Kam and a group went out on the boat before breakfast, and unfortunately, VERY unfortunately, they hit a rock.  The boat was done.  

Then there were unfortunate arguments because Amy and Kam wanted to rent a boat and continue with the original plan and stay another three days.  The other thing was that the winds were picking up like crazy and it was blowing the dirt/sand around so much that the little kids would just cry when they went out of the trailer, and it was extremely unpleasant, and the forecast was for higher winds of up to 50 mph.  So Megan and Jared and Brett and I were more for packing it in and going somewhere else.

Eventually we decided to split ways, and after they got Amy's family back across to the Arizona side of the lake, we started packing up our stuff, but because the wind was so bad, and it was absolutely crazy trying to fight to take tents down and everything, we were just chucking stuff into their trailer.  It was a mess.

And then we went home.  And that was the end of Lake Powell.  It maybe wasn't the best trip one could hope for, but there was one really really great day, so I'm still glad we went.