Tyler goes houseboating at Lake Powell!

Hi everyone! Hope everyone had a good weekend! We had quite a vacation last week - lots of fun, but definitely tiring also! I don't have the full set of pictures from the trip, but figured I'd update anyway with the photos (not many) from my camera. Once I get the rest of the pictures, I may update again!

We headed out with my entire family (10 adults, 4 kids) early Tuesday morning - destination: Lake Powell! With so many people and luggage/food for the week, we filled (to the brim!) a 14 seat passenger van as well as a minivan. What a trip! Thank goodness we made lots of stops (for the kiddies!). Will and I had the back row of the van (well, kind of, the last row we took out to put all the coolers and stuff). Tyler was amazingly not so bad on the 10 hour drive - thanks to this huge bag of toys I brought along and my mom's DVD player. Whew - not sure I want to be doing that again any time soon though. The other kids (Tyler's cousins) were in the minivan with my sister and her husband.One of our stops was at the McDonald's trains station in Barstow for some soft serve ice cream. Yum - it was perfect since it was SO hot. Tyler really liked the ice cream!
Family shot! I think there are better ones on the trip but I didn't get any on my camera. Kareen did a great job planning the trip, and her and my sister-in-law Michelle had all the meals and everything planned the whole time we were on the houseboat! It was really nice having the whole family together - especially since all 4 of us are married now! My dad was really glad that everyone was able to make it. It's things like this that make me want to have more kids!
Tyler met Ronald McDonald! sort of. I thought he might be scared, but he was curious about him instead.
Fast forward. We drove all day Tuesday and ended up in Page, Arizona for the night at a hotel. For dinner we had Sonics! Yum! We even squeezed in a trip to the SuperWalmart Center where we got $1 water shoes! Wow huh! The next morning we headed to the marina and got onto our houseboat. Man, it took forever to get everything on the boat and packed away! Here's Will driving the houseboat with Tyler! The houseboat was really big - 70' I think, with 4 bedrooms and 2 pull out couches. The bathrooms were good sized too. Also, the top deck was awesome - a hot tub, a slide into the water, and a wet bar area! Definitely a fun time that we had. :)
Thursday we stopped at a small dock and hiked to see Rainbow Bridge, a national monument. Boy, was it HOT! I think even Tyler knew it was super hot - he actually didn't keep trying to take his hat off like he usually does. He also kept guzzling from my cold water bottle.
I got Tyler this sippy cup that has a rubber tip instead of a hard plastic one (see the previous entry regarding possibly a broken tooth!) that he really seems to enjoy. He now walks around hands-free with it. Hmm. Only problem with this sippy cup is that it doesn't hold milk in all that well, and its a pain to clean the nozzle! Anything for Tyler though!
Tyler got to sport tank tops again on this trip! After a day or so in the heat, I decided that Tyler didn't need to be wearing a onesie inside his tanks. Here's Tyler with a map - he looks worried that we're going to get lost...
On the top deck there was a phone that would call the downstairs level - Tyler was hooked on playing with it. He'd pick it up, put it to his ear, and say ' Hi...'. It was really cute! The view was amazing from the deck - almost like being in a water-filled Grand Canyon or something. At night we would get in the hot tub and look at the stars - they were so bright since there were literally no lights around at all. We even saw a few shooting stars!
Every day we went swimming in the lake. We had a speedboat that we would pull flotation tubes - that was really fun! Here's a picture from the first day, after we had anchored for the night. We were at a pretty shallow area so we didn't bother with a life vest for Tyler. Tyler LOVED it and just kept shrieking the whole time! Here's Kareen, my little niece Annie, and me in the back, and Tyler and Will in the front. Look how happy Tyler is! The other days we were in deeper water and Tyler had to wear a life vest. He was NOT happy about that. :(
Just to give you an idea of the view. Here we are in the lake, surrounded by Grand Canyon type rocks. They say in the middle of the channel, the lake is 400+ feet deep, and more in other places. Yikes!
Here's a shot of Tyler and me in the speedboat. You can tell how unhappy Tyler is in his life vest. That's Will and my brother in law Ken being pulled in the back. We went fast!
Captain Tyler and Will driving the speed boat. Tyler loved the steering wheels - this one on the speed boat, and the 2 on the houseboat!
Man, that's all the pictures I have from the boating part of the trip! I'll need to get more to add. Anyway, Saturday our trip came to an end. It was sad since it was such a great adventure, but also nice to be getting more room! While the people at the marina were loading our stuff, Tyler got to play in the fountains. He seriously loves water. I thought I could keep him dry, but he ended up soaked. No big deal though, it was so hot, he dried super quick.
Family picture at Antelope Point Marina!
After we left the marina, we drove to Laughlin, Nevada where we stopped for the night at the Aquarius hotel (used to be the Flamingo Hilton). Can you believe that hotel rooms were only $50 a night - for a Saturday!? It wasn't even like ghetto or anything! Thanks to the cheap price, we got 5 rooms - whew - no more squishing! When we first got there, Tyler was playing with the phone and unknowingly pressed the Emergency button - which prompted a visit from Security. tsk tsk Tyler. I got in some gambling (whoohoo, got the Vegas bug out) too.
Overall, great trip, great memories, lots of video too! I'll upload sometime this week hopefully. I'd do it now but YouTube seems to be down. I'll be back with more pictures once I get a set from the rest of the family - so be sure to check back again!