Lake Powell 2009

We returned a week ago from our Annual family trip at Lake Powell. This is something I look forward to every year as I am really close to my siblings and parents. The trip was just us- no kids- just my brothers, sister + spouses and parents. A total of ten (cuz Rich finally got married- woot!). Soon our kids will be old enough to bring to the boat (parents rules), but until then I am more than happy to just relax with adults and act like children. Nine of my best friends were there and the fun never stopped. I have decided to just slop on a bunch of pictures so be prepared to scroll down a bit. I've also added commentary/journaling which may bore you but hey- pictures alone don't explain much... which in some cases may be a good thing, eh? I've only got half of them contained in this post. More to come soon.
*PS- I tried a different format for this post so hopefully the commentary will line up properly with the pics. Cross your teeth, peeps...

As we took the houseboat out to beach, the clouds kept opening and closing which created great shadows everywhere. It would turn the top of the boat bright white and the water dark green. One of my favorite things to observe in the clouds here is how the sun reflects off the orange/red rocks making the cloud shadows orange, not the normal purple or grey. See that? Do yeh?! Mighty purdy, me says.

We all pitched in with the menu and everything we ate was SO GOOD. A typical dinner prep atmosphere complete with fun music. Embarassing dance moves were had as we are all old and out of practice. Who needs alcohol for good times? Not when you watch me try to do the "reverse running man". I promise.

We had wind the first two days which kinda stinks for boat goofing. But when you have lemons- you make fruit punch! We flew kites and the boys made some sophisticated water games. It's not as easy as it looks, folks... those mats sink pretty fast before you can get to the end.


Our trip is not complete without some Guitar Hero. Oh boy! The best memories this time were:
1) Sweet, innocent Jessica.... who does not know the Beastie Boys very well, had to sing "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" while Julia & I were, like, tearing it up on the gee-tars. Oh man- I haven't laughed that hard in ages after listening to her sing about "money in a stack and classy ho's".
2) And the best was watching these three here... Marty, Rich and Julia go for "Livin' On A Prayer". Rich and Marty* were close, and yet so far, from completing the song. One of them always kept getting boo'd off the stage for missing the notes (in their defence, Juls and I did hand them over still in the "hard" setting) so they would have to re-do the song. By the 3rd or 4th time, we were all yelling the chorus trying to encourage their victory and when it wouldn't happen, we'd all "OHHHHHH!!!" and do it again. There was a peaceful, older couple beached not too far away from where we were. Poor sweet folks probably expected a nice, quiet night on the lake. That full moon was serenaded by us shouting JB Jovi. As Gilly would say, "........sarry."
*Look at how hard he is concentrating in every picture. So funny.


Ah. Some boat fun. It's a serious matter as demonstrated by Scott and Randi here. Go Jess! She was hands free by the end of the week.


Rich is a show off.

So is my Dad.

So I tried it one upsies with my eyes closed to boot!

...and drifted too far back and sunk like a dumb rock. Nice.

Finding little pets is easy on der bich (inside joke- careful saying that one out loud).

Last year Rich had a lizard on his head. He did it again.

We went on some cool hikes on the hills around. It's so fun to go in the warm twilight and look for vampires. I mean, views. Sorry for the fuzzy pics- I'm bad at adult photography (Not that kind..... shame on you!).


At the end of the day it feels darn nice to jump in the lake and wash off the sun block and such. That is, if you don't have a dead body reach up from the depths and grab your ankle! (Whatliesbeneath!) I love memories of this and tried to get a good image of what it's like. Jewel dark green water, warm light and crazy dare dives from the top into the darkness (and dead bodies. Srsly).