Lake Powell

Everyone except Brock and Arin's family was able to go to Lake Powell with the Harper Family.  We drove our Dodge and Ali, Alex and Clayton rode down with us.  The weather was supposed to be a little chilly and rain was forecasted too. Getting out of town proved to be a chore.  I had everything ready to go by the time Zach finally got home, but then we stopped and ate at Café Rio and didn't leave Spanish Fork until ohh...around 9 ish.

We stopped in Hanksville for some caffeine around 11:15 which apparently was a bad idea, because the result was the purchase of some California-style ugly @$$ cowboy hats. They kept trying on hats and we were all laughing so hard. It's a good thing the guy in the store was still cleaning up and was way chill because he actually closed at 11 and I think we left around 11:40 or so.

We got in around 1 am and had to wake Brent and Jan up to help us find the house boat and get all our stuff aboard and situated.  The wind was so bad, they hadn't left the slip. We actually didn't leave the slip all weekend because it was such a short trip and the wind was off and on, it wouldn't have even been worth it to go anchor somewhere.

We were afraid it would be too cold to boat, but the next morning we drove the ski boat over to where they usually anchor. We had a good wind block because it's in a channel.  Everybody took their turn on the wake board.  I have only ever tried once before this trip and I had a hard time getting up. I'd get almost there and the slurp up a mouthful of water.  I was all the way up one time, then somehow fell down right after.  I had to quit because it was making my shoulder hurt.  It wasn't cold after you were in the water and used to it and because we had that good little wind block, it wasn't even cold out of the water. 

The next day we went knee boarding. I'd never tried or even seen knee boarding before.  Zach kept giving me contradicting instructions so I was really confused about how to get up. When I finally did on the 3rd or so try...Zach fell off right when I got up and started riding so I had to let go.  We got up one more time for a little while, but it made my shoulder hurt so bad from trying to get up so many times that I couldn't go anymore. 

We went back to the house boat and changed and got Jan, Sharon and Kody to go sight seeing. We saw some cool old miner's steps and some really cool natural formations. 

We had a really great trip with no accidents...even though it was just a quick two day trip.

Best Neighbors Ever

We have the absolute best and cutest neighbors of all time. They are always bringing us goodies and come over and tell us what they have been up to when they see us outside.  When they jump on the tramp and I'm weeding the garden, we are just a fence away so they jump and tell me about dance class, or learning the guitar, or what they did over the weekend.

It was time for them to go back to school and we decided to do something nice for them for once, so we made them back to school gifts and took them over.  The kids insisted that we come inside and we chatted with them and Sally for a little bit before leaving.

The gifts for the girls. What girls can go back to school without chapstick and fingernail polish?

The next day, I came home to find cute cards that Ivy had drawn for Zach and I.  She had made a card for each of us telling us how much they loved having us as their neighbors and since we weren't home, she put rocks on the edges so they wouldn't blow away. It was too cute.

Not too long after, Sally texted me one afternoon saying, "Be sure to check your porch when you get home. We left you some fall goodies." I opened it up and it was full of home baked goods and other treats. Zucchini bread, apple streusel, peanuts, candy corn...it was all so cute! Sally said Kimmy, Tyson and Ivy had so much fun putting it together for us and were so excited to give it to us.  We feel so blessed to have such great neighbors!

First Flood...Yes, Flood

The weekend of the 6-7 Zach was up by Strawberry with his young men for a stake campout.  He was leaving Camp Heleman and called me to say he was leaving because they were getting rained out.  I had just got out of the shower and needed to go grocery shopping because it was Saturday and I was in charge of bringing corn for Beckstead family dinner the next day.  I looked out the window and the water was literally a river down my street.  It had come up so high that it was over the sidewalk and into my yard.  I ran downstairs to be sure we weren't being flooded out in the basement.  We later learned that a few ward members did have their basements flood. We were grateful to be on the high end of the street so the water was running down past our house and not making a pond in front of our house. 

I didn't get any pictures because I had to run to the store and on my way back, turning onto our street, the water was probably halfway up my car door.  When I went in to Smith's to shop, the rain had let up quite a bit. But when I left...I got completely drenched. So much for my shower and clean hair...  I was outside for maybe 30 seconds and I was more wet than when I had got out of the shower earlier.  When I got home, I had to take off all my clothes and put, clean, dry everything on.  I had to get towels and dry out my car because there was so much water on my grocery bags and from leaving the door open to put the groceries in that my seats were all puddled up.

I found this picture on KSL which was taken just one street over from us (I recognize the house on the corner).  The main street that the Ford is pulling up to is 800 South (the second Payson exit).  This is right by the Hillman Baseball Fields.  Our street looked just like this.

First "Legit" Zipline

For Valentine's day I bought passes for each of us to do the zipline up Provo Canyon in the summer/fall.  We only had until September 30 to use them up, so I finally got them all scheduled for Saturday (9/14).  It was actually really fun...especially because I got them 50% of the normal price. BAM! Now that's a deal!

There were a lot of little kids in our group and it was kind of funny because the group had around 11 people in it, and the other 9 people in our group were all family. They were really nice though and even took pictures and video for us. Hopefully the lady will email those to us soon! 

The zipline is actually 5 separate lines that equal out to be about 1 mile of zipline and you actually have to brake on the line and stop yourself at the end or you'll smack into the trees.  The scenery was beautiful and it was such perfect weather.  We were worried we would end up getting struck by lightning or something because it was forecasted at like 60% chance of rain and was down pouring in Payson when we left.  It was perfect fall, sunny weather though.

Our guides were really fun too. The one was actually an RM that spoke Dutch but went to the West Indies. He called it a "Caribbean Dutch."  He took some pictures for us with his phone and texted them to us as well.  It was a little weird though because he had hippie sandals on and painted toenails. He was a definite "granola" type person, but actually really a great tour guide and a lot of fun.

Mini Golfing

Jeremiah had a date and insisted that we all must double (is it called triple dating if there are 3 couples?) with him for his date that night.  We ended up just eating at Texas Roadhouse because Jer said that we could eat anywhere except PF Cheng's, or chinese food, or asian food, or seafood. Well...that leaves umm...steak? HAHA The twins relentlessly teased Jer at dinner and then we went to Trafalga for a round of mini golf.

Ali and Alex are the cute couple saying things such as, "Oh babe, that was a good shot!" Or, "Not so hard next time!" Or, "You should be teaching me how to play."

Then there's Zach and me..."That was horrible. You should probably quit while you're ahead, hun!" It makes it ok because I throw in the "hun" at the end though, right? Or something like, "HAAAAA! That was awful. Awesome, I'm ahead three strokes now after that performance you just displayed."  It works for us though. Two competitive people, but yet, somehow we still figure out how to have fun and not hate each other at the end of the night.

First Labor Day

It has always been a Jewkes Family tradition to go camping for Labor Day. However, since Teigen is doing high school rodeo now, and my parents just bought a new living quarters trailer, they opted to only go up for dinner Saturday.  Also, because it was forecasted to rain, and had been down pouring in Emery County all week (something that NEVER happens).  We decided to go up with them for dinner on Saturday. It was enjoyable, as always. At Jewkes family gatherings, it is basically a competition for who can be the loudest if you want your say in anything. I usually leave with a headache and a gut ache from laughing so hard.

Since it was raining pretty hard when we left, and continued to rain all night, we woke up to this in my parent's lot behind their yard Sunday morning. It was running like this nonstop all day long and was still going when we left that evening, even though the rain had stopped entirely several hours before.  I'm just glad they decided to keep the ditch in the back when they bought that piece of property when I was younger.  It actually ended up serving a useful purpose to leave it unfilled.