Lake "Pal"

Last week I experienced my first taste of Lake Powell, and I loved it!! We were able to go down with some friends with their houseboat time share and secured a sweet spot thanks to Steve napping on the water weenie in our little cove/cavern. It was awesome because the sun never touched us so we stayed as cool as possible with all the kiddies and you could swim a few feet to get some sun if you wanted it. I snagged this picture of where we were off Heather's blog, thanks friend!

Look at how little the houseboat looks compared to the canyon, it was seriously unbelievable to me when we were driving/boating or whatever you call it out to our spot seeing these huge rock walls surrounding us on all sides, Lake Powell is amazing!

We had 6 kids under 4 there with us that got to experience life jackets most of the time. Selma and Hayes were the only two "immobile" babes so they only wore them when the houseboat was moving or when we were on the boat. I think by the end of the trip those two had gotten pretty used to them.

Navie and Ridge took them like champs, they didn't seem to mind them at all! In fact, I think Ridge didn't want his taken off if I remember right, they are already hardcore boaters, kids after their parent's own hearts :)

And then our little veterans, Ivie & Zander.. These two have been to Lake Powell before and go boating a lot so no problems there! I loved how they would always fall asleep on the boat, so stinkin' cute!

While on the lake we did plenty of lounging around and a lot of us took at least one nap a day, love it!

Our week was, of course, filled with lots and lots of boating! Couldn't get enough of it..

Kami, Navie, Ridge & I showing off our shades:

We were so glad that Lance's little sis Candy and her friend, Jenni, came, they were so fun to hang with! Navie loved 'em!

We had plenty of great girls' tubing trips.. The first few days we didn't want them to go easy on us, hey we can't be wimps right? Plus, way more fun to get thrown in the air and bounced around!

However, with all the sore bodies and a few injuries, the last couple days we made them be a little nicer and had some pleasant, calm-ish rides:

All the kiddos loved the boat, which was a nice break for all us parents. Kid's tired? Crying? Take them on the boat and, wahlah! Kid's asleep, or at least occupied and having fun! :)

(This is pretty much how Selma looked whenever she was in her life jacket, what a somber little gal :)

We even piled them all on the tube with us (minus Hayes) and took them for a 2-mile-an-hour short ride, it was really fun! Selma just sat there, well, most of them did, but I think they still enjoyed it. Plus, it made a cute picture and memory :)

We also had water weenie wars, the boys tube-wrestled, we surfed, water-skiied, two people got to wakeboard before a binding busted, and even more tubing, can life get any better?

Thanks Lance and Candy for driving us everywhere, we all had a great time!

Besides boating, eating, and napping, the other thing we spent the most time doing was playing games. We had a super-fun group for playing games with, whenever we weren't all out on the boat, there was some sort of game going on. I think I only ended up taking 2 naps the whole time cause I didn't want to miss out on the gaming action.

We played Pop 5:

Didn't get any pictures but we also played a lot of Werewolf (like Mafia but, in my opinion, way more fun!), Hand & Foot, Farkle, Scum, Hearts, 3-Round Charades, It Came to Pass, and maybe more but I can't remember..

Our last night there we ended our game-playing with a gut-busting couple rounds of Who, What, Where: boys vs. girls. In it, the boys and girls pick a who/what/where for the other team to act out in a telephone-game fashion so only the first person to act out the stuff actually knows what they're acting and the last person has to guess what they think the who/what/where was. I got a ton of hilarious, semi-embarrassing pictures, but since I would like to keep my friends, I'll refrain and just give you a little taste of our funny game:

I was lucky to get that shot, if I hadn't, I'm sure they wouldn't have reenacted it for me. That was Mark portraying Ariel (the Little Mermaid) trying on wedding dresses at the zoo and below is Lance acting the same thing. I got a lovely video of Sky acting it as well but it didn't work so Lance's will give you an idea of what the game was all about. I just wish I hadn't stopped recording before he acted out the zoo, super funny stuff!! I was worried my SD card would run out since I was only using my camera, oh well..



Other random happenings down there included:

Cliff jumping (I jumped off with Sky a couple times but I didn't get pictures, I need to get them off someone's camera)

One broken nose (sorry, didn't get a picture of ya Steve!), one broken toe (namely mine), and a lot of large bruises, etc:


Lance's infamous "butt-crack" shorts, enough said..

Our own "Wipeout" course, created by the boys out of tubes, water-weenies, etc, wish I had pictures of that..

And plenty of swimming and lounging out in the lake on rafts and floaties, if only I could have come back with a fabulous tan. I discovered that it is much harder to get sun and a tan with a baby.

Not to make this the longest post ever but I feel like Selma grew so much while we were there that I have to post about her. She got a lot of love from all the kids while we were down there.

As you can see, Zander loves giving Selma kisses and loves. Everytime they're together he always hugs and kisses her. We joke that Zander and Selma are going to be boyfriend/girlfriend when they're older, hey, who wouldn't want to be in-laws with the Froerers? :)

Selma was being kind of fussy the first day and night and it was getting kind of frustrating and we didn't know what was going on until the next morning when we discovered her first tooth! We couldn't believe it.. I almost started crying, I'm crazy, but it was just like my little baby was that much more grown up and I was so proud of her!! I haven't been able to get a good picture yet but she's gotten her two bottom, front teeth, I love them!

While we were down there, she also started giving more loves (maybe thanks to all the other kids :) and just became so much more like a little girl. She's been so much more active and was trying to crawl while we were there, yikes! She rolled over from her back to her front (yay!) and then rolled over three times in a row! Baby-proofing, here we come! She also has started making a ton more sounds and experimenting with her mouth (probably due to teething). This is just such an exciting age, I feel like she's just blossoming, and overnight too!! It was like a little vacation was all she needed to take off, and that's exactly what she's doing!! We love you so much Selma, you bring so much joy and excitement into our lives!!

Overall, we had such a great time!! We all were running on a lot less sleep then normal but we still all had a blast and kept the fun coming, thanks everybody for making it so much fun, and thanks Brek and Lance for planning it all!! Here's to lots more fabulous friend trips to come!