Last bits of summer

My younger brother flew out to spend a week with my oldest brother in Idaho, and since they were driving past us on their way from Vegas, we got to spend a little bit of time with them.  My kids LOVED climbing all over them and chasing them and playing on their laptops! I bet they were actually happy for a quiet road once they left.

I love this "I'm pretending to be asleep" look here.

As soon as they left, it was time to start packing.  Lake Powell time!

The girls were instantly in love with the paddle boards.

And Tyler was so thrilled with Uncle David entitled him "Captain Skarda" and put him at the steering wheel.  I thought he was joking, but he actually left him steering the houseboat!  David would go and adjust something, and then come back and tell him to turn one way, go fix something else, and then have him adjust another way.  Tyler was in heaven.

I was just thrilled to not have a "ladder-dweller" this year.  Each of my girls has spent a year or two where they don't trust the life vest and refuse to let go of the ladder.  Which means that each person who wants to get in or out of the water is invading "their" turf.  I spent a few days working with Jasmine in my neighbor's pool just to make sure that wouldn't happen this year.  It took a few hours and a lot of tears, but she finally trusted the life vest - if she had her floatie.  Which floated away halfway through the week.

Tyler spend most of his week on this tube.  He loved getting pulled behind the boat in it, but somehow the kids all thought it was the best toy even just sitting in the water behind the houseboat.  He would jump from tube to tube, throw each other off of it, you name it.

For my husband, it is all about the surfing.  Wakeboarding is pretty good, too.

One of the cousins brought his little kayak, and I was impressed that Tyler figured out all of the steering over the course of the week.  He loved it!

It was a really busy week at Lake Powell, that's for sure.  The invitation has always been for the whole extended family, but usually only about 25 or so come.  This year, we had 40 people for the first few days.  And then our hosts had to leave for a day or two to take their son to the MTC.  We kept telling them that they could cancel the trip, but they kept brushing that off.  We are truly grateful, because our kids look forward to that all year.