Red Rock Paradise

We've been home from Lake Powell for a week now and it has taken me this long to get my land legs back. We love our annual trip to Lake Powell with Dave's family. Dave looks forward to it all year and said this was the best year for him so far, despite the fact that his family's speed boat lost its transmission on day 1. Lake Powell is never complete with out a few challenges. We arrived at Lake Powell on Saturday, loaded up the house boat and headed out to find the perfect camping spot. Dave's parents would be arriving the next day with his sister and her family. And Dave and his brother would take the speed boat back to pick them up. Early Sunday morning came with the bad news that the speed boat would not go in neutral or reverse. Oh no! Lake Powell with out a speed boat? Upon Grandpa's arrival he shifted into crisis aversion mode, he made a couple calls and then he and Grandma hopped back in the truck and took the speed boat back to Salt Lake to see if they could get it fixed. Thanks to family our trip was still a success. Dave's cousin came down the same day with his new boat and when Grandpa's boat wouldn't be fixed as soon as we would have liked he called Uncle Jay and we had a boat for the rest of our trip. Thanks Debbie and Loel and Uncle Jay! We really had so much fun. Here is a few more pictures so you can see just how much fun we had. Taten's favorite thing was definitely the wave runner. I was really nervous at first for Dave to take Taten, but Dave said he would go slow and stay close by. When Dave tried to give Taten back to me after a few minutes, Wow! did Taten throw a fit. He did not want to get off. Needless to say Taten had a ride on the wave runners every day.

Taten did not however enjoy his tube ride. We tried to get him to sit in the middle of the tube but he just kept climbing up on me and didn't stop crying. So Dave and I enjoyed a short ride ourselves but it turns out that Dave didn't like the tube much either. But my sister-in-law Aubrey hopped on with me and we had a blast!!! Now that the water level is back up at Lake Powell we were able to go see some really cool ruins. The Moiki steps. It was only a short hike, but I don't think I would like as many steps going up to my front door. Here is a picture of us in side and then one of some of Dave's family looking out from below. It was a really fun to see these ruins and learn about the people who lived there.

Breaking Dawn came out August 2nd the first day of our trip . Dave and I planned on leaving our house at 5:00 AM in order to get to Lake Powell at the same time as his family. But I needed Breaking Dawn, I had been waiting all year to read it. As you can see from the picture, I wasn't the only one who hit Barnes and Noble at midnight.

and a Few of Taten's favorite things...

Taten loves his Grandpa. I think its because Grandpa loves to dance with him.

Taten loves his mom too, I almost couldn't be out of his sight for the whole trip.

He also enjoyed making sugar cookies with his aunt Emily and cousin Avery.

Eating suckers with his cousins.

and He loved the Taten sized chairs. Which he climbed in and out of about 900 times during the trip. As you can see he looks right at home.