Today started with me waking up before 6:00 to Jet Ski into Waweep marina so that I could rent a motorboat. The ride to the marina was amazing, and I captured some video along the way.
Back at the boat, the family was waking up to these beautiful views:
While I was checking out for the boat, Lily called me in a panic because while she and the kids were eating breakfast, a very large mouse scurried under the table while everyone was at the table. Lily has a full on phobia of mice, and that event completely emotionally undid her. That was the hell of today. Lily and the kids stayed on top of the house boat until I returned with the speed boat. The kids got bored and sang the bottles of beer song to pass the time:
Lily didn’t step foot inside of the houseboat after that except to eat dinner with the family, and she was so distressed during that meal that she said it was the worst meal of her life.
The heaven of today was the jet skiing and the boating. I loved my ride to get the motorboat, and I absolutely loved boating around with the family. It was also so neat for me to pick up a new skill as I had never motor boated before.
We cruised through almost all of Navajo Canyon. The kids loved sitting at the front of the boat with the wind in their hair. We found a wonderful sandy beach to park the boat, swim, eat lunch and play. It was truly magical.
Everyone was super tired after boating. I boated back to Waweep with Lydia after dropping everyone off and snapping this picture. Then I rode the jet ski back to the house boat. I let Lydia ride drive the jet ski back for almost the whole Arizona portion (which was most of the journey). She was legally allowed to operate a jet ski in Arizona without a permit (not so in Utah) so we felt better about her driving in Arizona before we crossed into Warm Creek (which was in Utah). She did drive some yesterday in our cove, but today she had a nice long ride driving. Lydia LOVED driving the jet ski and took it up to 30 miles per hour. She never wanted to stop, but did when her hand got sore from holding the throttle. It was such a fun experience for me to share her first jet ski driving with her. I could tell she really enjoyed it.
Back at the houseboat, I gave a tone more tube rides. Mary was having a truly tough evening. She got really freaked out and upset when Clarissa fell off her tube, and I towed her in, and she got water splashed in her face. Clarissa was fine, but Mary was very upset about it. Mary had been having a tough day already, almost to the level of Lily’s trauma. Mary, the whole trip, has been incredibly freaked out about all the spiders, gnats, and other bugs that have constantly surrounded us. She got so unhappy with the bug situation that at times she said she wanted to go home. Seeing Clarissa get splashed in the face when I towed her was apparently the last straw and she got really upset. I gave everyone else tube rides (and learned how to get people on their tube when they fell without towing them to shore) and everyone had a great time overall (Ammon did cry once when I steered him into a big wave hoping he would like it and he fell off and bit on his tooth painfully, but he soon recovered emotionally). After everyone had their turn jet skiing (and loving it) Mary had recovered and I took her on a long gentle ride during the sunset. It was magical and wonderful. Here are some videos.