Party at Powell

We are blessed with some amazingly generous friends. 

The Maxwells offered to share their glamorous, luxury houseboat with them for a week at Lake Powell.

How could we say no to that offer?!

Lake Powell with young kids is a lot of work but it was a blast and SO worth it!

Captain James steering the houseboat out to our spot.

The upper deck is spacious and pimped out with a bbq, slide, fridge, ice-maker, you name it.

Daddy and Benson on the first day of trip!

Here is Captain Ken the "real" captain of the houseboat.

Here I am enjoying the sunshine and stunning red rock views.

This is the crew anchoring the boat.

 It's a pretty intense process but many hands make light work.

Here is Brandon and Ken drilling to set the stakes in place.

Brandon and P.W. 

We also shared the boat with the Tucker family: P.W. (as shown) his wife, Paula, and their daughter, Hope.

They don't get better than these people. We had a boat full of three  fabulously fun, generous, delightful families. 

Brandon and I were sure we would be bothered with someone by the end of the trip and we still love them all and far more than when the week began.

Here is Brandon working the crank.

The houseboat. I told ya...not too shabby, eh?

The views were breathtaking and the weather was ideal.

Me and Julie (Captain Ken's lovely wife) chatting on the back of the boat. 

Daddy and Benson on the Maxwell's speed boat. 

It took some time for Benson to warm up to his life vest. It was a bit of a struggle the first day or two to get him to wear it and be happy.

Alisha surfing. The water kept spraying in her eyes so she wore James' goggles.
Pretty awesome look :)

This is Julie.

She is a faithful friend.
I love her and look up to her in so many ways.

James and Emily (Julie and Ken's youngest).

These two got along SO well all week. 

Brandon on the surfboard tearing it up as usual.

Brandon got some really great runs in on the wake board. He jumped the wake and entertained us with some sweet wipe-outs.

B wake boarding some nmore...

Alisha (the oldest Maxwell child), Emily, James, and Brandon

Here's Lish taking the plunge!

Now that's good form.

Brandon's turn now!

Here comes James!

B flexing for the camera :)

Does it get any more beautiful than this?

Shame on any of you for thinking the desert can't be breathtakingly beautiful ;)

Mr. Max with goggle eyes.

He fell asleep multiple times on the boat. The boy knows how to play hard.

Here is cute Kaitlin (Julie's daughter) and darling Lizzy (Kaitlin's BFF) helping 

James to knee board.

Look at him goooo!!!

Poor Brandon tried to sneak away in our room for some R&R with the iPad...

The boys can smell that from a mile away. 

Benson just climbed right up on his chest and took over whatever game B was playing.

Hahaha!

Not wearing make-up for a week was bizarre for me. Not that I am not okay with going "eu natural" but I really like make-up.

I ended up really enjoying the break from it though. 

It was nice to dive into the water whenever and rub my eyes without a smudge.

This poor little one was in the middle of cutting teeth on the trip.

He did surprisingly well considering his poor mouth was bothering him so much.

Thank goodness for an endless supply of Otter Pops!

James was FEARLESS. This kid jumped off anything.

Here he is jumping off the top of the houseboat.

It was a good 15-20 feet up.

The following are a ba-zillion cliff jumping photos:

Yeeee---haaaawwwww!!!

And there was plenty of beach time for the boys. 

I think this was Benson's favorite part of the trip:

Cute Paula brought a tie-dye craft for all the kids.

So everyone got to make a tie-dyed scarf. 

SO fun.

Ps: Paula makes the MOST amazing food: home-made moo shu pork and pot stickers,

crab dip, seven layer dip...

SOOO gooood!

THANK YOU, MAXWELL'S! 

WE WILL PARTY AT POWELL WITH YOU ANY TIME!!! :)