FAMILY REUNION 2021-- 5 DAYS AT LAKE POWELL

 Our reunion this year was at Lake Powell and included our kids and our grandkids! We rented a houseboat, which was really nice! It was great having a stove and refrigerator, air conditioning, beds to sleep on and mostly--working bathrooms with toilets and showers!! It couldn't hold all of us, so Lisa & Barry's family, Kari and her boys and Tami and her kids, all camped! Yes, Kari and Tami came without their husbands! They also could only stay over the weekend. We left on Thurs. Sept. 9th and stayed until Tues. Sept. 14th. We lucked out and got the PERFECT place! Our own private cove, which included plenty of sand, lots of mud, and cliffs for the kids to jump off from!

 This was how loaded Marks family was before they could pick up their boat and put some of their stuff on it!!

 

 So LaVerl and I got to Lake Powell on Thursday. We were to check out where the houseboat rental was and what time we could start loading it. That took a couple of hours. Then we met up with Tami and kids and we got on our boat and headed out to find the 'ideal' camping spot for the houseboat and 3 other boats. The problem was that we got on the lake pretty late and it we didn't have a whole lot of time before it got dark! We really needed to find a spot in Wahweap Bay because we had so many people coming and going. Otherwise we would have to travel all the way around Antelope Island because the water level is at 30% and that is the only way to get to the rest of the lake. We thought we found a pretty good spot and it was right across from the houseboat marina, but on the main lake, which wasn't ideal. We unloaded and helped Tami set up her tent and shade before it got dark.

LaVerl and I slept on our boat that night, well we didn't really sleep. Later that night, Chad and Luann got there and couldn't find the houseboat marina in the dark. They ended up staying in a motel in Page.  Bret's family arrived around 8pm pulling two jet skis. They slept on the houseboat, along with Mark's family that arrived after 2am!! Lisa and Barry drove most the night to arrive early so everyone was putting their boats in the water around the same time.

The next morning LaVerl put his pole in the water and just set his pole down for a minute and suddenly it was jerked right off the boat by a fish before he could grab it! So there is a fish dragging around a fishing pole somewhere in the lake!! He was really bummed out about losing his new pole. We told Mark what happened and he said,             "Sounds like a rooky mistake to me!" Later that morning Blake caught a catfish and a bass.

 So once they were on the lake early Friday morning, they found us, but decided to look around for a better spot, which they found, but there was already a houseboat there. The people were super nice and told us they were leaving the next day and we were welcome to come into the cove so that no one else could and to the save the spot. So that meant the we had to take down Tami's tent and everything else and repack it on our boat!

It was worth the hassle because it was the PERFECT place!

Lisa and Barry set up their camp site just down from the houseboat. Tami set her tent a little farther away from everyone!

LET THE FUN BEGIN!

Chad and Luann having fun in the water!

Ellie was so good to take all the little kids for rides on the jet ski!

We had 3 boats. 2 jet skis, 4 paddle boards and a Lily Pad to play on.

It was nice on the houseboat to relax in the air conditioning.

These 4- Mark, Lisa, Kari and Tami, plus Milea decided to do a workout! They had to swim across the cove and back, do 50 squats, 50 push ups and I don't even know what else!

At the end of our cove was the perfect mud pit, the kids played and played in it. They buried themselves so deep they got stuck!! Barry was the only one who went to dig them out! The rest of the parents said, "Oh well, they did it to themselves!"

We enjoyed some beautiful sunsets!

Note the kids on the high cliff! Even Wembley and Ivory jumped off!

Zallen was Gpa's fishing buddy! All the boys loved Gpa showing them how to fillet a fish!

On the 2nd day a storm came up in the afternoon and pretty much wiped out the camp!

Yes, Bret, Kaemon and Mark jumped off this 50 foot cliff!!

When you are "TRUE BLUE BYU FANS" you find a way to watch the game anywhere you are. These boys found phone service high on a rock and were able to watch BYU play Utah and we WON 26-16 after 9 consecutive losses against them!!

Not in the picture were Mark and Chad!!
 

This is only a few of the of the hundreds of pictures we took in the 5 days we were there!! It was a GREAT family reunion!! The only thing that would have made it complete is with EVERYONE there. We missed Reed, Natalie and Eliana and little Gabe! This reunion was for the grandkids, so 20 out of 22 being there is pretty good odds!