Mid-week mini-vacation!

Hank and I just returned from a nice trip to Lake Powell to spend a few days on the houseboat! It was a super relaxing, wonderful time as always...and it was awesome to get some family time in and some sun too. It's hard to believe that this time next year we'll have our little guy in tow with us when we head up there. Really puts things into perspective. I wasn't great with my camera all weekend, and a lot of my photos didn't turn out very well, but here are a few of them, via my Canon and my iphone. If you're curious, I'm using the shakeitphoto app, which I love. And as always, you can click on any of the photos to view them larger in Flickr.

heading through Flagstaff


nap and a WIN!




breakfast on the houseboat...looks good, huh?!




getting ready to take the smaller boat out...beautiful sunset


view from our slip- so pretty even docked


heading out on a day trip






I love the way this looks.

Lake Powell

We spent this past week on the houseboat on Lake Powell. It was the most wonderful time, full of 10-hour a night deep sleeping, amazing, healthy meals, tons of swimming, and lots of running around and having fun. Hank's family has been going to the Lake for many years before Hank was even born, and he grew up spending weeks at a time on his families boats- so he is a total water baby. I was raised on the ocean, so lakes are a whole different thing for me, but I have to say, I love Lake Powell and I was super excited for this trip! So we left Sunday evening and drove up to the Lake and got there around midnight. Hank's Mom and step-Dad had already flown their plane up and spent the 4th there, so they came back to their slip and docked Sunday night so we could sleep there after arriving late and head out to find a beach Monday morning. Their slip is right at the very end so all you see if water and canyon, simply beautiful. So we spent the night very comfortably and headed out around 9am on Monday. Hank and his Mom took the speedboat to scout out a beach to dock at, and once we arrived we got the wave runners down and had a great time. The whole week was a blur of water and fun, and the pictures tell the story best I'm sure. If you'd like to see more, you can check out my Flickr. Yay!

Hank's Mom decided to name the boat "Fins Up!" :)


navigating early Monday morning


good morning sleepy head!


getting the waverunners down, the pulley thing always always freaks me out


Hank!


about to be pulled around the Lake on a huge raft, soooo fun!




Navajo Point


I love this photo of Hank


good morning!


jumping off the top of the houseboat


amazing evenings

Feeling...old!

I really cannot hang like I used to! This weekend was amazing and fun but I am seriously too old to be staying up until all hours of the night. Luckily Hank and I leave for Lake Powell and our houseboat later this afternoon and I am going to be enjoying a week of rest and relaxation. We try to go a few times a year but this past year we only went once so I have been looking forward to this for a long time. I can't wait to just float around in the water for hours on end, jet ski, and eat yummy bbq every night. I'm still being a little slow to get up and ready this morning- last night we watched the fireworks and then Amber and I went out downtown for a couple of hours with Scott. I didn't stay up horribly late, but I'm still exhausted collectively from this entire weekend. Last night was fun though. While watching the fireworks, Hank reminded me that on the 4th of July, four years ago, he told me he loved me for the first time! I had totally forgotten that milestone and it was so cute that he hadn't. It brought me all the way back to that night. We had been dating for about nine months and I was up in Prescott that week, staying with him at his Dad's house. We did the typical 4th of July stuff during the day, and then came back to his Dad's for the evening. His Dad lives in a beautiful house up on the top of a mountain overlooking all of Prescott, PV, and Chino. That year we watched all three cities fireworks simultaneously from their deck's hot tub. It was so romantic and special to be high above the world, watching three different fireworks shows with the person you were falling in love with. When Hank told me he loved me that night it was such an amazing feeling - he told me he had loved me since the moment he first saw me, and a whole bunch of equally mushy stuff. Three years later we were married, so he definitely did something right! It was just so neat to be taken back to that memory- so many times we forget things like that and it was nice to know he didn't.

I hope everyone had a really lovely 4th of July weekend. I definitely did, and I was happy to spend time with most of my family and some of my close friends. :)

Here are a few random photos from yesterday evening-

Sarah and me, walking downtown for some frozen yogurt




Hank and I at the fireworks, this lighting is BAD (I look sickly pale) but still a fun memory :)


Amber Joy and me, heading downtown on Saturday night



this photo makes me laugh - such a funny 5 minutes of my life