Friday, June 6th: We got into the car. Drove to Grandma's house. Left for Lake Powell with my cousin Emma and two of her brothers and my uncle and aunt. Drove for 5 hours, arrived in the red, rocky, sweltering place I call my favorite place in the world. Unloaded our cars, got to the boat. Swam in the water. Jumped from the top of the houseboat. Got out. Dried off. Played "Hand and Foot", which is only the very best card game in the entire universe. Ate dinner--croissants, chicken salad. I had to eat mine in a spelt tortilla (to avoid yeast and wheat, two things I'm allergic to). Went to bed. (Gabby and Emma and I slept up on the top deck, which may or may not have been the best idea...when you are in the slip, boats surround you, and not everyone goes to bed as early as you do!)
Saturday: Uncle Chris and his two younger boys and my Aunt Heidi got there late Friday night. Their boat was broken. While we were waiting for it to be fixed, we drove out of the slip, through the choppy water, and we found a spot to park our boat nearby. Unfortunately, though they told us it was only a temporary spot, we stayed in that place the whole week. The water behind our houseboat was only 6 feet deep! And it was dropping 1 foot every day. We weren't allowed to jump from the top of the houseboat--it was too shallow. But, besides that, it was a new adventure for us all. Those who didn't have to wear life jackets could purposely sink to the bottom and touch the slimy wet sand below. I even took my life vest off for a bit so I could, too. Later, Chris's boat was fixed, and they brought it to our houseboat.
But don't fret, we didn't have to wait all that time to ski. Cory, Emma's dad, has a boat as well. We went wake boarding with them. I have some advice for you, if you will ever ski: Always tighten your boots! My right boot's straps were tangled, so I could not tighten them. I KNEW that if I were to crash, I would hurt my right ankle. I didn't care, and I got up without tightening my boot. Sure enough, I biffed it, and I injured my ankle. It was so hard to walk the first couple of days! I had to limp the whole time. Don't do what I did.
That night, we ate dinner, and basically everyone on the boat decided to watch Band of Brothers. I know my parents are strict about shows and movies we watch--and they would not let me and Gabby watch it--so we went back to watch We Bought a Zoo on the small TV. Kim, my aunt, watched it with us. We were too tired to finish it, and went to sleep upstairs.
Sunday: We skiid. Did the usual. I did the slalom ski, not the wake board. We played cards. Some of us swam across the bay to the Island ahead. I didn't go. It was too long of a swim for me to have wanted to do it at that time. We ate breakfast, lunch, dinner. We had fun. As usual.
Monday, Tuesday: My cousin Alexis and her new husband Austin came on Monday. We had lots of fun with them, having a water football thrown to us while we're coming down the slide. The times I caught the ball are a fair few. It was funny...Christian, another of my cousins, was dying to be able to catch it with both of his hands, one at a time. He had two catches on the right hand, but until he caught one in his left, he would not stop. He just kept going, and he finally stopped when he got two catches with his left hand.
We also went on the tubes. Two people were out at a time, each on one small tube. Cory, who was driving, would try to knock one person at a time of their tubes. It was a battle to see who could stay on and not fall. Whoever fell off their tube first lost. I went with Taylor, my littlest cousin who was there. After I almost killed him when I hit a bit bump and landed on top of him, and after I almost got clothes-lined because of the ropes, we decided that it's safest to go with someone your own size. :) Smart idea, right?
Probably my favorite part of the week, game wise, was when we played the board game Smart A. (I'm not going to finish the last word for the sake of the readers. And for my sake especially). We referred to it as Smart Ace, and everyone knew what we were talking about. This is how Amazon describes it:
- The ultimate trivia game
- Fast-paced, multiple player game play
- Includes 490 questions and unique jumbo dice
- Quick moving, fun party game
- Nominated for 2007 "Game of the Year"
I'm inserting this in the center because I can't remember what day it was. We went on a hike...Chris took us to a cliff. There was a crack in the cliff that you could walk through if you climbed up high enough to get there. Apparently there was a sand strip in the crack you could walk across. The older cousins and my uncles who did it said it was awesome. I wish I could have done it! But I only brought flip flops--those weren't up to snuff. I could slip and fall, easily. Most of us couldn't do anything, so we had to sit in the boats and watch the small group jump off the cliffs and into the water. Because of those extenuating circumstances ;), we drove to the Indian ruins so everyone could do something.We got out of the boat, looked at broken artifacts, hiked to a high point where real Anasazi huts were. We climbed inside each one, and saw the hieroglyphs on the walls. That was fascinating. And then we went back.
Wednesday: My cousin Amanda came. We tubed again. We skiid, we swam, and I am proud to say that I swam all the way to the island! (With your life jacket on, which we are required to wear, it's not too hard. Actually kind of relaxing in the warm water. You just need to be careful because there were three boats near us...they would take their irritating wave runners and boats and create awful water. Not a safe environment.) At the Island, we climbed big rocks, stepped in black, gooey mud, and had a funeral for a dead baby lizard we found. His name was Fabio Jr. (You won't understand that.) We buried him in sand and made a cross over his grave with seashells. I wrote "R.I.P" under the mound of sand he was under. We all said nice things about him, and I walked away. Then Taylor, my littlest cousin there, stomped all over the grave and demolished it.
Thursday: This was our last day out in our spot. We did last minute ski trips. We drove on the boat to the island, stayed there for a bit, then swam all the way back. It was kind of sad when everyone was out in the water for one last time before we had to take the houseboat back to the slip. We swam until they forced us to come out. We touched the bottom many times, dove down, went off the slide. Then came out. We played cards on the way back. That night, we all slept inside. Well, except of my cousins Eric and Benjamin. They slept on top.
Friday: We packed up, cleaned the houseboat, and drove home. Grandma drove me and Gabby home with Eric and Benny. (That's what I call Benjamin as a joke. :)) We went to Stan's Burger Shack for lunch, and Benny and Eric gave me all their loose change for "being nice at Lake Powell." That was nice of them, because I was running out of money. Then Grandma started driving. I ate sunflower seeds. We talked. The whole drive home felt like it lasted only two hours. G'ma is a crazy driver!
The only things I wish that could have been better was our spot. EVERY TIME Emma, Gabby, and I skiid, we got the crappiest water ever. The boats would chop it up and I would have to exert all my strength on the rollers. As soon as the rollers were gone, I'd be wiped out from trying to fight against them and stay up. I couldn't do anything...I was too tired to go out of the wake and try to get air, too tired to stay up for long and get gnarly. :) Oh well. Better luck next year.
I'm not going to forget playing cards with my cousins Tim, Zeke, Eric, Benjamin, and Emma. If only Aaron was there to enjoy the week with us. Castle, Hand and Foot are games I will always love. I will always love Lake Powell!
(Other pictures later. I'm promising myself now.)
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