Lake Powell Part 1

Josh's brother's wife's family invited all the Ericsons to join them on their week with their houseboat. Originally I refused to go b/c it was too stressful to think of taking care of 2 kids with no air conditioning, water everywhere, and a lot of heat. As soon as we found out Josh's entire family was able to go, I reluctantly agreed. It's a good thing everyone convinced me it would be fun, b/c it was a blast! It was much easier than I thought it would be to take care of the kids - I even was able to keep them on their sleep schedules with a little tweaking. It's no secret that Lake Powell is my heaven on earth, so I was thrilled to have 18 babysitters on the houseboat so I could enjoy it as well.

The car ride went better than we expected, but not great. We borrowed my aunt's Excursion and left at 6am. It was going well until Spanish Fork canyon and Brayden got car sick and started throwing up all over. Steve, who was driving, got distracted and swerved too much for my comfort but was able to pull over so we could clean up. We stopped at a park soon after to breath a little then continued on our way. Here's Brooklyn as I try to keep her entertained (and yes, I turned her car seat around for the drive. It was a must!)
I'm realizing now that I didn't take any other pics of the drive or of the houseboat. Oh well. Here's Jake and Brayden while we are waiting to depart on the houseboat.

I'm sure she's thinking, "Does this life jacket make me look fat?" It was the smallest one we could find.

Since we only got 1-2 hours of sleep, Josh crashed as we found a spot to park the houseboat.

Here's Brayden driving the houseboat:

We finally made it. Brayden was pretty reluctant to go in the water, but Kay eased him into it.

He was having fun in the water until Kay started freaking out b/c a fish touched her leg. Here is the after picture:

We quickly anchored the boat, ate dinner, played games, and headed to bed pretty early. Josh and Brayden slept on top of the houseboat on mattresses with everybody. Brooklyn started the night in one of the rooms in her pack-n-play and then I moved her to the top after everyone went to bed. It was way too hot in those rooms. I had brought a little 2 man tent that Brooklyn and I slept in so I could nurse her in the morning without anyone catching a show. I didn't know if it would work, but it was perfect.