Bruce has been asking Jeff to go with him to Lake Powell and teach him how to fish. They always say they are going to plan a trip, but never have.
Lauri Nisson and I have become friends. She has helped me through the hardest year of my life. I love her! She is always happy and positive and has taught me a lot of things I needed to know to get my head on straight. (trust me I am nowhere near done with that). Now that we have become friends, I was thrilled one day when she called me out of the blue and invited us to go to Powell for a weekend. We have always LOVED Lake Powell it is so pretty and peaceful and I love water.
We took the kids to Powell several times when Jeff still had his Bass boat. Kaden liked to fish with him and Jamie and I loved to float and swim. Lindsey and Callie not so much. We spent a lot of time at Quail lake with the kids too. Tubing with cousins and friends and most of the time just us. A picnic and a day of playing in the water are good memories for us!
A few times we went to stay on a houseboat with family and friends and I was in heaven! Jeff and Jamie too. One time we went with my brother and sister and their families and that was super fun. We also went with friends and had a lot of fun hiking the slot canyons and playing in the sand and water. The thing all of us remember about that trip was we got there kind of late and we were meeting our friends in a certain place. We were ALL crowded into Jeff's boat with all our camping gear and food and a storm came up. It was super windy and the water was really choppy. All of us were soaking wet including our sleeping bags and things. It was really scary after awhile I could tell Jeff was getting worried too. When he gets worried, I get worried. I really thought we were going tip over. We were all praying hard! All of the sudden we hear yelling and see our friends up on a hill waving us down around the bend to the houseboat, That was a huge relief to this mom. We did have a fun uneventful trip after that. so....yes I get off track easily :)
The day Lauri called was the day before the Paddock reunion. I was not in a very good place which anyone who read that post would know. Jeff was up the mountain making everything perfect and I was down here stewing about the whole thing. She asked us to go and then told me she had called for rooms all over Page and only found one hotel with any available rooms so we needed to book a room ASAP. I wanted to go. We needed to go. Jeff and I needed some time to reconnect and I have a sneaky suspicion Lauri had that in her mind when she decided to invite us.
I am a spontaneous person by nature. I was on board the second she asked. Jeff is not! He has made me and all our kids crazy through the years because he never makes a decision about anything for days. I hurried and called him because I am dumb and for some reason have not learned over 30 years to by pass his indecision and just go for it. He had horrible service and it was hard to hear each other, but I heard him starting to talk about what ifs and not deciding yet. I told him the room situation and to my surprise, he asked ME if I wanted to go. I said Yes I think we NEED to go so he said go for it. When I was booking rooms it said no refunds and cancellations so it was a big leap of faith for me to book and prepay for pricey rooms but I knew we needed to go so I did it.
Nissions have a houseboat but it's expensive to take out so they just took their ski boat and jet ski's.
Fast forward a few weeks, I started to panic about the money to go. Jeff started to panic about leaving when he had work. We were supposed to go Thursday after my first day of Preschool so was causing me stress as well. Since Karver comes Wednesday, I like to devote my day to him so it left me little time to get ready for Preschool and the trip.In the end we decided to cancel Thursday night and arrive early Friday morning. I was very relieved to find that we were able to cancel with no fee. Going for one less night made us both feel better.
We left early ( I don't do early very often ) So we could be there for the whole day. I was excited. I love water. We needed a break and Lauri and Bruce are fun, so I knew it would be a good time. We hit construction and we sat not moving for 20 long min. Things like that make me crazy! I also felt bad keeping them waiting since we had already bombed out the first day. We met them at the hotel and got changed and loaded up the boat. I forgot to mention we pulled the jet skis over there with us. They had been to Sand Hollow with the boat the week before, so we had to go through the process of them washing down everything and getting rid of the creatures that transfer from lake to lake. That took forever too!
The minute we got to the dock, I was in heaven. we couldn't get out on the lake fast enough for me! Bruce told Lauri and I to take the jet skis out and they would follow in the boat. Hello? I have never been on a Jet ski let alone driven one. Since it wasn't ours I wasn't about to learn there. Jeff and I ended up in the boat to head out. He was in Heaven! For someone who fished and boated nearly every weekend for years then hadn't gone for years I could just see the joy in his face. He was having so much fun and I was loving it too. I told Bruce later that he was pretty brave to let Jeff drive off. He may have just taken off and never come back. We found a pretty close little beach area in a cove and started our adventure. Jeff and Bruce started fishing first thing. Of course Mr. showoff Jeff caught about 5 fish in the first 10 min. Poor Bruce. He got a nice one though and let Lauri reel it in.
We had lunch and lounged around in the water, and then finally they convinced me to learn how to run the jet ski. I am not a very brave girl. Jeff use to try to get me to drive the boat all the time. I would, but not for long. I never helped him load or unload it for fear of screwing up. Kaden, Michon and Jeff and always tried to get me to drive the 4 wheelers and Rhino too. I am always worried I will forget something and crash! Driving a 4 wheeler is very stop and start with me. Accelerate, break, repeat 5 times, turn the driving over to someone else. The Jet skis however you accelerate and then to slow down or stop you just let off the gas a little. Much safer and easier and it didn't take me long to be hooked. After that I was loving it. Speeding all over was super fun. Loving the water.
We had a great time. Docked the boat at dusk. Drove to Page and had dinner in a little Italian place at 10:00 at night. Talked and laughed till we were exhausted and headed back to our rooms. The plan was to be up early, meet at the boat and head out again. We were only 20 min. late. Lauri was on fire to get out there. Bruce and Jeff stopped and talked and talked every 5min. By the time we stopped and got gas and food etc. We were pretty late. We had another great day, Jeff stepped on a piece of driftwood though later in the afternoon and in punctured his flip flop and foot. We tried to keep him off it and out of the water, but anyone who knows him knows he doesn't listen to advice well. Ok at all! We decided Lauri and I would take off and ride around and they would fish until it got close to dark. We found all these little coves where the water was like glass and had the time of our lives.
Then...it started to rain. About the same time Lauri's jet ski kept stalling. It happened several times and so she told me to go find the guys. Really ? I had NO idea which direction they were let alone how to find them. Luckily we made it to them just as the rain started to pelt us. Now I know what the term" pelting rain means". It hurts! The storm came up so suddenly so we headed back to the dock as fast as we could. Mind you this is several miles away. The storm churned up the water and it was so choppy. We were in crazy waves non stop. Soaking wet. I could barely see. The guys followed us in the boat. We were going so fast hitting wave after wave and guess what? I wasn't scared at all. It was really fun and when they offered to trade us places, I used the excuse of keeping Jeffs foot out of the water and we kept on the jet ski's! We made it back exhausted and very sore from all the jarring wave jumping, and soaked and I even helped load up the gear. Ha!
I would spend my entire summer there if I could. If I ever come into a lot of money we will have a house boat for sure. And of course a couple of Jet ski's.
After we loaded up we decided to head to Kanab for dinner at a Mexican place. On the way out of the park I told Jeff I had already been to dinner the night before in swim wear and water shoes looking lovely I am sure and that I wish we had a place to go to change and clean up a little. The road was deserted and Nisson's were in front of us so while Jeff was driving I changed my clothes in the truck. Very tricky I must say. I managed to get my hair fixed a little and bare minimum of make up. He pulled over and quickly did the same. We met a McDonalds for a potty break before heading off to Kanab and had a good laugh when Lauri got out of their car fully dressed and ready as well. Great minds think alike! We had a yummy dinner at 10:30 this time and left for home. I for one was worn out by the time we pulled in but not too tired for a shower. We just had such a nice weekend it makes me look back and wonder why we didn't do it sooner!
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