Today, Lydia and I left by 7:40 to take her to her harp competition. When we arrived, I tuned the harp, and then she played in her practice room until it was time for her to perform. At 9:35, she performed beautifully!
Then Lydia and I had 3 hours to kill until the awards ceremony. We had so much fun together! First we went to the farmer’s market to look around at everything. Then we went to the Greek festival and enjoyed some really great food. We learned that Lydia likes dolmathes! Our Gyros were so good too! Then we went back to the Farmer’s market and got a bunch of things. Lydia got slime, earrings, gelato and a gift for a friend. I got a candle and a necklace for Lily, and we also bought produce, a gifts for family members and wands for Mary’s upcoming Harry Potter party. The weather was perfect, and Lydia and I had such a fun time walking around together, talking and shopping. She is such a joy to pal around with.
We made it back to the awards ceremony just in time, and we learned that Lydia tied for 3rd. Great job Lydia!!
Then Lydia I headed home from Salt Lake, but first we took a slight detour so I could show Lydia a house that she lived in when she was very little:
While Lydia and I were at the competition, market and festival, Lydia was having a great day with the kids and her mom as well. She did a fun outing with Georgia, took Ammon to a Harry Potter Birthday party, and took the kids to the library. Lily had a particularly good time with her mom, and so everyone had a really good first part of the day.
We took it relatively easy in the afternoon, and then had a family movie night. We watched the new live action Little Mermaid as well as Superpets. The Little Mermaid was well done and a great show, but I think Superpets was everyone’s favorite. It was absolutely hilarious and had a very beautiful message. More than anything, it was just so fun to snuggle and share something as a family for so long.
Also, here is a really cute picture that Clarissa drew:
Today was my first full day home after being in New York and I loved it. I was up until midnight getting my work done, but that was largely due to the fact that I was so involved with the family after 3:20.
I picked up Mary and Lydia from school and got home just a little after 4:00. At that point I ate dinner and played store for a little bit with Ammon, Mary and Clarissa. I ended up buying lots of great things from their stores!
Then I took Mary to swim practice, and while she was at swim practice, Clarissa, Ammon, Basil and I went 4 minutes away to the house of Todd Jaramillo. He is a friend and podiatrist, and he agreed to see me at his house on almost no notice because my right foot was in so much pain that I could not walk on the ball off my foot without intense pain. The problem was a combination of the prickles that got stuck in my foot from the Lake Powell fiasco (when I ran bare foot to another houseboat to hitch a ride to our houseboat where Lily and the kids were) and all the running I’ve been doing to prepare for the upcoming half marathon. Todd removed a pus pocket that formed deep inside my foot, and after he removed/drained it, my foot felt amazing. Thank you Todd! After picking up Mary from swimming we returned home, and then Mary put Ammon and Clarissa down while I got my work done.
All evening, Lily and Lydia were gone to Salt Lake for a meeting about Lydia’s harp competition the very next day:
Today I left to New York. I caught my flight by 12 seconds, and I need to stop cutting it so closely! Back at the house, Lydia was preparing for her harp competition. She is sounding great!
Today I woke up and did the 500 workout (7 reps), and Lily and Mary went to the store for groceries. Back at home, Mary made the most delicious pancakes, which I gobbled up ecstatically after my workout. They were perfectly tasting protein pancakes and I loved putting bananas and fresh peaches from our trees on them. Our little trees made a lot of peaches this year!
After breakfast, we all went to the park and I ran a mile with Lydia and Mary. We timed their mile at 13 minutes and 6 seconds! I then ran a mile on my own at 6:36. We ran Basil a lot in the process, and also Ammon and Clarissa were riding their bikes around the track the whole time. It was a little hot, but a wonderful, glorious family outdoor experience. Then Lydia and Mary walked the littles and Basil home while Lily and I lingered and played some Pickleball. It was so fun!
Then we all went to church. The lesson was about loving those around us, and my biggest takeaway came from a comment Lily made. Her comment caused me to reflect that if we truly knew what every person was going through, and saw their lives from beginning to end and all the toil, pain and hardships that occur, we would want nothing other than to cheer them on and be happy for them during the good times, and we’d be much less inclined to be jealous, tear down, and fault find. I love that insight.
After church we all visited Georgia which was so fun:
This is the wall of love notes Mary has sent to Nana
Ammon danced for Georgia
She didn’t join us for Olive Garden because she was very tired, but we enjoyed playing the card games she gave us while waiting for our table and for our food.
Back at home we played more of the card games she gave us (War, GoFish, Old Maid etc) and then we watched Elemental all cuddling as a family. Today was a truly happy day.
Today I did a long run in the morning and the kids had some fun watching Saturday morning cartoons:
Then we all went to lunch at Seven Brothers. We got these cute pictures of Lydia and Mary at the Riverwoods:
Back at home, Lily and I did a lot of work on the house, especially in the garage. We put away messes that ended up in the garage from all of our summer trips. It took several hours to get the garage back in order! I loved listening to the CDs from my youth on our garage CD player while we cleaned. Mary also helped. It was fun encountering different things while I cleaned like this beautifully loose composition from Mary:
In the eventing, Suzanne came over and it was tremendously fun to catch up with her and tell her all about our Lake Powell adventures.
Lily and I visited Zion’s Bank and Mountain America Credit Union to check out their HELOC products. Afterwords we ate Pho. It was so fun to be on a date together! I’ve been working like crazy, and Lily has been cranking hard on cleaning the house and it was really nice to get out together.
Today was very busy for me because Lily was too traumatized by the mouse to go inside the houseboat and help pack and clean etc. Still, I was very happy to get everything ready to go while she rode on the jet ski with Mary. They both were having a rough trip and it was very nice to see them have some fun together. Lily also took Clarissa on a ride and unhooked the kill switch while they tried to save a fish. Lily didn’t know how to get the kill switch back in and so she had to tow Clarissa on the jet ski by swimming 30 minutes back to shore. Clarissa was much more sad about the dying fish than the fact that their jet ski wasn’t working and Lily had to swim them back, lol.
Here is a video of Lily and Mary riding around and some final pictures of our trip.
Then I pulled up the anchors and drove everyone, but Lily back to Waweep in the Marina. Lily rode the jet ski next to us the whole way, and I was so grateful to hear that was a highlight for her on the trip. She communed peacefully, and mouse-free with the nature around her on that epic two-hour jet ski ride. We also all rode past the damn.
When we checked out they refunded our $680 in gas because of the mouse and jet ski issues. That was very helpful and we were grateful for that. We then drove home and pulled in at 11:30 PM. I was very tired for work the next day, and Lily was tired too, but motivated by her fear of mice to work on cleaning the house the whole next day.
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.
I rode past the Glenn Canyon damn on the my way to Waweep. It was such a short detour (just around a corner) that I took the whole family there the next day in the houseboat as we were leaving.
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.
You will notice that we have very few pictures for days 2 and 3 on Lake Powell. Everything turned out fine, but both days had some setbacks, and neither Lily or I were much in the picture taking mood.
I spent a lot of time by the radio trying to communicate with boat rentals to have someone come out and check our jet ski. On day 2 (Sunday), they finally made it out, figured it was a dead battery and then drove off because they didn’t have a replacement, and their jump pack wasn’t working. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if and when they were coming the first time, and then if and when they were coming back. Lily and I still had great time to swim and play with the kids though, and the kids had an amazing time swimming, kayaking, and building mud balls they called Kol-Nuts which apparently are some type of fiery food served at a restaurant from the Pixar movie “Elemental”. They built sooooo many Kol-Nuts and were still doing it on the last day.
I was frustrated at the end of day two when we still had a non-functioning jet ski. It was very hard for their mechanic to get over to us because other people were having bigger problems they needed to prioritize (like a broken generator for example). When they finally made it to us and couldn’t help, I was very frustrated.
On day three, the kids continued to have a really great time, but I got more and more frustrated as the day went on. At one point, Lily, Lydia, Mary and I all tipped the jet ski over to discover for ourselves that I had gobbled up the rope in the propeller. I was dumfounded that the mechanics the day before didn’t suggest that we tip it over to look at it. It seems like that would be jet ski 101. I should have thought of it too, but I especially thought a mechanic would have thought of that. So we figured out the problem on our own (actually a mechanic, maybe the lead, suggested we tip it over the radio, so that pointed us in the right direction), but we still needed a mechanic to help get the rope out, because after all my trying, I still couldn’t get all the rope out. So around 11:00 on day 3 (the jet ski had been down for 40 hours at that point), two mechanics came. They helped get all the rope out, but then we learned that the batter was also dead because of all the times we tried to start it. And unfortunately they did not have any jumper kit or a new batter. So they took off again, unsure of when they would be back because it all depended on what other calls came up. At that point, I slumped over the steering wheel feeling upset, sad, frustrated and mostly loss. In my mind, I knew how much fun everyone could be having on this, our one chance to jet ski as a family. I knew everyone would love it, and we had never done it before and this was our opportunity. I knew it would just be the best, and now because I gobbled the rope, we were stuck just playing on the beach again. Lily was very sweet and consoling. I was sulking, and sad. The reality was though that the kids were super happy with the itinerary as it was. They swam and played on the beach happily. They didn’t know to feel loss for the jet ski. The did ask about it on day 3 because they wanted to ride it, but they weren’t put out when I told them it was still broken, they just still had a great time swimming, kayaking, and making Kol-Nuts. I eventually shook off my frustration and went to swim with them and I had a blast. I also remember lunch being very happy. We all just talked and talked and talked and really bonded. I understood that the bigger purpose of our trip, just being a family and bonding together, and having deep time together, was being accomplished, and that was very satisfying. I starting to cheer up, when the mechanics came back around 3PM carrying a battery!! We got the jet ski up in no time, and then the party began!
I took all the kids out on a jet ski ride and they all loved it. Then we had a delicious dinner. We’d been eating well thanks to Lily’s preparation and cooking (all I did was grill). By day 3, we had had spaghetti with hamburger, grilled chicken, salmon etc. After dinner, I took all the kids tubing until the sun went down. They all loved it. I was thrilled that I could share those experiences with the children. Lydia even got to drive the jet ski and she loved doing it. It was one of the happiest moments of my life sharing such joy and fun with my children in such a beautiful place. I knew they would love the jet ski and they did. I was also over the moon with joy that the jet ski was fixed and that part of our vacation experience was saved. The day ended very very happy.
Also, after roasting for two nights inside, we moved mattresses to the top and all slept outside. We actually got a little cold (but not bad) and had tons of bats flying all around us, but it was a major improvement over sleeping inside, especially given the spectacular view of the stars.
Clarissa with her little cronutI sent this image on day 2 to help the mechanics find us. I wanted to save it, because our beach was incredible, and I’d love to go back to that same beach someday. Even the mechanic commented that our beach was very nice. The cove we were in was just small enough to have barely any traffic and just large enough to cruise around on the jet ski and take kids tubing. Also, after the first night, the two other house boats near us left, and so for 4 days, we had the cove 100% to ourself (aside from the occasional fisher or water skier). I was totally in love with our beach.
