Relay for life...

We went to Gunnison this weekend to participate in the Cancer fundraiser, Relay for life. It was fun to be with everyone and emotional to see all of the surviors and the families of those who lost their battle. I feel so blessed that we have two survivors in our family. We were able to raise a lot of money, that will hopefully bless the lives of future Cancer patients.

Lake Powell 2011... The Novel

Wow! What an adventure Lake Powell was. Let's start from the beginning... We left Thursday night, we were going to leave Friday morning but decided because of the Holiday weekend we had better leave earlier. We were going to leave at 5:00, well that turned into at 6:00. We went to get gas at flying j. Not really sure why, it was in the opposite direction? When we left we forgot to put the cap back on the boat's gas tank and it flew off into the road. We didn't even realize it was missing. A semi-truck driver saw it picked it up and followed us. Luckily we stopped to wait for my Dad. We hit the road at 7:00, around 9000 south we get a call for my Dad who was driving the motor home. It was overheating bad so we needed to pull over. We got off the freeway and pulled into the jiffy lube parking lot. A fan belt had broken and it was majorly leaking antifreeze. My Dad traded me places, (i was in the Tahoe) and they went to find a new fan belt. They got back around 8:00. We walked over to Arbys to eat dinner while my Dad and Jeremy fixed the belt. We drove away around 9:00. After some serious traffic through Utah valley, we made it to the mouth of the canyon. We decided to stop and change the kids to their jammies and use the bathroom. We started up price canyon around 11:00. It was slow going for us up those darn hills. The motor home doesn't do great up hills. It was chugging so bad, we were all laughing hysterically. We stopped in Wellington to get some gas Corey and sophie were asleep in the motor home, my Dad traded Jeremy and Jess and they drove the motor home the rest of the way while he slept in the back of the Tahoe. I think it was around 1:30 at that point. My mom and I talked the whole night. Everyone was asleep. We were so tired and had a few laugh attacks, as we call them. We made one last stop in Hanksville to get some gas. We made it to Stanton creek around 5:00 am, 10 hours later. We parked on the road, I grabbed my pillow, layed the seat back and don't remember anything else until Tom woke us up at 6:00 wondering if we wanted to watch the sunrise. We all started scouting out a spot. It was insanely crowed everywhere! The whole morning we debated on where to go, the first spot had ants all over, the second we could get to but wouldn't be able to get out if the water rose, which it did. We finally picked a good spot and started setting up. We got stopped by a few people who were worried we were in the way of the road, which we weren't. We made sandwiches for lunch, got the boat in at the Marina and the kids and Corey swam for a while. Corey had to go to Blanding for the night so he could work, he and Dawson left around 4. We went tubing after they left. We made Navajo taco for dinner and then went to bed. I was nervous because it was a little windy. The wind picked up around 11:30 and is when all heck broke loose. To put it nicely, some stupid man decided to drive his diesel truck right through the middle of our camp. He proceeded to move chairs, coolers and our camp stove. A little frustrated my Dad told him there was no were else to camp behind us, and even if there was, which there wasn't, he was in no way going to get his trailer over this huge rock that blocked the way to the other campsites. The people who were back there only had trucks and even they had scrapped their under carriage. The man was rude a didn't believe him, so he continued driving his loud truck right past our tents. There were some choice words exchanged and then he realized couldn't make it, just as we had said. He left his truck there and disappeared. Just as that ordeal was ending a huge gust of wind came and collapsed my tent, thankfully Soph was out and sleeping by Tori in a different tent. It also picked up our Huge white tent that was being held down by ropes, stakes and buckets of water and tipped it over. We were up for about an hour putting it back together. On top of it all it was still 90 degrees outside. When all was quiet again we sat on chairs and watched the stars. We laughed even though I am sure we all felt like crying. I climbed into to motor home with my mom and we both shared a twin foam pad. I slept like a rock. I was so happy Corey and Dawson were in Blanding. That would have been 10 times worse if Daws would have been there. Saturday we woke up and ate breakfast. We went to the Marina for ice and treats, then went to find some shade to swim in. We swam around all morning and explored some little canyons. We went back to camp and made lunch, then picked up Corey and Dawson at 3:30. We went tubing when they got back and then made dutch oven chicken for dinner. It was so so yummy. It was calm and cool that night, and we were all able to get some much needed sleep. Sunday we swam and tubed in the morning, then packed a picnic and went to look for the Indian ruins. We cliff jumped and swam along the way. When we got back to camp we made enchiladas for dinner and peach cobbler for dessert. It was insanely hot again and didn't cool down the entire night. At one point I woke up and looked at Soph. She completely naked. I laughed really hard. Monday we wake boarded, skied and tubed the entire day. We Tye dyed shirts that afternoon. I dumped an entire package of green dye all over my legs. I washed off in the lake but it didn't come off all the way. I looked like the hulk. We ate hot dogs and s'mores for dinner. A storm blew in that night complete with rain and thunder and lightening. I was done and Our tent held up, only because we had boulders on every corner and ropes tied to trees and bushes. It was hot and windy most of the night. We tried sleeping in the motor home but it was about 110 degrees in there. We woke up Tuesday and cleaned up we got on the road around 11:00. We broke down about 10 times in the Tahoe and the motor home broke down about 6, it barely made it home. I thought we were leaving it in price. It took up about 12 hours to get home. Looking back despite being incredibly tired and all of the other things that went wrong, we really did have a good time. We laughed so hard, mostly at our hillbilly neighbors, " I'm an aquatic mammal"! Did our traditional fake, really trashy tattoos. I think I won. We painted our toenails, had some awesome Tye dyed shirts and ate some really yummy food! Soph loved swimming and spent most of the time in the lake. Daws had fun throwing rocks in the lake and riding in the boat. Cor had fun sking and tubing. I love being in a boat on a lake, and I love spending time with my crazy family! until next time...