Lake Powell 2012

 Ah, It's summertime again, and that means our annual trip to the 'Big Lake' as Grandpa Bryce calls it. It gets harder & harder every year to fit this little 4 day trip in to the ever busier baseball & golf tournament and traveling schedule. So hard that this is the first time in 3 years that Luke has been able to come! Crazy..



The Lake was, as always, splendid & breathtaking. There is nothing better than a sunrise or sunset on Lake Powell. Tranquility...

 We were blessed to have our good friends, The Naccaratos accompany us this year. They are Lake Powell virgins so it was so much fun showing them all the traditions and craziness we've adopted over the last 15 years.

Zac, Nick & Jake, on our way to drop off camping gear to our site

We hit a bit of a snafu early on, somehow bending this prop on day 1. Luckily, Wade & Rory are very prepared boat owners and we had a spare. Just had to quickly pull the boat out of the water, pull off the old, put on the new, and off we went. Hardly even broke a sweat. Well, I didn't because I stayed in the shade on the boat ;-)

 Our fearless captain Wade & his sidekick Zac.

My lovely friend Dominique was so excited for her kids to have this experience. I think she neglected to realize that she would be having it with them. Day 1 hour 1 she asks me "Does it ever cool down? Are there always bugs? Is it always this hot? Will my tent stay hot all night?" Silly little virgin...

She adapted quickly though and was happy as a clam as long as we were on the water, or at the Marina. 

Kyle & Dominique

 Their kids were super troopers. Ready for the next adventure at all times. Very helpful at meal & cleanup times. Very good at breaking up the fights my boys got it (did he just throw turkey at him?), and just happy all the time. Don't know how they did it, but these two deserve a medal in raising polite children.

Whitney & Makaelee cruisin' on the nose

Lexi & Kaden having snuggle time

 We did all the traditional Lake Powell funness including:

Sand hill...

 Whitney, Luke & Makaelee at sand hill

 Wakeboarding...

Luke getting some righteous air

 Tubing...

Whitney, Zac & Makaelee rippin' it up

stealing a nap on the Marina couches...

everyone...drooling on the leather...except the rambunctious 5 year old

 Lounging lakeside on the Adirondack Marina chairs...

And some obligatory sightseeing, Navajo Canyon still being our favorite on the Wahweap side.

 We were truly roughing it. This is all there was folks. 6 tents, a shade cover, a porta-potty, and a camfire. After the wind kicked up quite strongly on day 3 Wade vowed to never tent camp at Lake Powell again. We'll see if he follows through on that!

Goodbye once again to this beautiful place. It has watched us & our family grow up. Gone are the days of sandcastles and ice cream cones, to be replaced by Wakeboarding tricks and sneaking drinks out of the 'adult cooler'. (JK... we're not there quite yet)

Water boys... & Luke too!

 Another Birthday season come & gone... Phew! It is alot of work having all 3 of your kids birthday's within a month time span. Should have thought that through in my child-bearing days. As 2012's season comes to an end, I need to give credit where credit is due for all my creative outbursts. Pinterest baby! I don't know if it's a good thing, or a bad thing, but this years parties were much too creative. I guess that give me license to cop out next year and do the pool, laser tag, bowling thing once again. Just write a check & watch someone else do the scrambling & cleaning.

Zac's birthday presents were all consuming, fill that baseball need. His favorite was his new Boombah bat bag. Luke received a new Titleist Driver that he has since named 'Monica'. She is the perfect girlfriend. Always in your trunk when you need her ;-) (no photo attached, should be self explanatory)

We had a quick Sunday night combo stuff-your-face-with-cake party with family. 

 On to Zac's friend party! When throwing around party ideas for him he wanted to do the option which ensured that he could invite the maximum amount of friend to receive the most presents possible. He's 9, what do you expect. Greed is a problem in our family. I blame myself.
We decided on a water party in the yard, but when his guest list hit 20 I balked and moved it to the nearest park. 20 screaming 6-8 year old's on my 1/4 of an acre??? I think not.

Color scheme was green's and blue's like the water in the ocean. (I'm a sucker for a color scheme)

 Pinterest #1: Beach cupcakes

Pinterest #2: Starfish sugar cookies (thanks Mommy for making these!)

 To round out our 'water' themed food we had otter pops, Goldfish, Swedish fish...

and ocean blue sugary goodness liquid refreshment!

 We played tons of water balloon games. Toss the water balloon, water balloon baseball, transfer the water balloon without use of hands, etc.

Perhaps our favorite though was water balloon pinata's! (Pinterest #3) I bought a dozen color themed regular sized balloons, filled them with H20 until they looked like heavy utters, and Wade graciously hung them from the rafters for me. Blindfolded, the boys started swinging!

Those darn thing didn't want to break easily, but when they did it was good for a splash!

 Boys were hungry for snacks.

On to the piece-de-resistance. Thanks to my brilliant friend Hadley for this idea. I picked up a bunch of men's sized white tee's, and some dollar store water guns.

 The boys donned their personalized shirts..

And the colored water fight began. Zac was a favorite target for all the boys. Look at the glee!!!

 After all that they still weren't wet enough for their liking, so Wade doused them with buckets full of water. Finally they were dripping.

 Oh no wait.. I forgot. There were several blue punch bottles left so they just opened them up and squirted them all over each other. Boys...

Happy 9th to my Zac. Love you & your silly spirit bud!

 And to Luke too, at 17 he's still my right hand man, toting kids around, babysitting once a week, making dinners, and backing me up when my disciplinary hand is just not scary enough. Love you Luke. Don't know what I'm gonna do without him when he leaves for college next year. sniff sniff.

Outdoor Movie Bash

 Birthday's are glorious occasions. Especially the big ones. You know, 16 when you get to drive. 18 when you get to go to naughty movies & buy naughty things. 21 when you get to go to Vegas the first time. 40 when... uh nevermind. And last but not least 12, when at the Walker house you get your first cell phone!!! Well, Jake our little social butterfly has waited and wished for this day for a looooong time now. On May 9th it finally happened. Did it live up to the hoopla? Dunno, ask him.

Wade & Jake adding contacts to his new center of his universe

We managed to throw a few other fun things into his day. Among the favorites were Birthday breakfast. A tradition at our house. Birthday person chooses what they want for breakfast. The whole family eats together, even if that means Luke being late for school. I know... mother of the year. 

Jakes fave: german pancakes

 

 

 

 

 At his family party he chose 'Better than sex cake' & strawberry ice cream. (the nominations for Mother of the year are really piling up now)  What a combo right? Ewww. He received lots of cash which was perfect because the next week he got to order his custom baseball glove with all his money. It has not left his side since. The boy might as well stitch it to his elbow.

 For his friend party, he invited his entire baseball team, plus several school & neighbor kids for an outdoor movie night. Much to old for cake & ice cream, we opted for a 'Popcorn Bar' complete with buttered popcorn with 4 different flavored salts, caramel popcorn, and white chocolate popcorn (god bless you Donna). Sticking with my red white & black theme, we did mini coke cans & mini red gatorades to drink, Red hot jawbreakers, red licorice, and red airheads.

Waiting for the sun to drop over the horizon, we took the boys to play fugitive for awhile. The game goes like this. We drop them off about a mile from our house, put them in groups, and they have to find a way to get back to our house unseen by us hunting them like dogs from the truck. The neighbors love us for all of our fence jumping, flower squishing, ditch diving nonsense. I haven't the foggiest clue why the boys love this game so much. It's the only thing they ever want to play when a big group gets together. I guess we can thank the lord we live in an area safe enough to play this game.  (knock on wood)

When it was finally getting twi-lighty Jake opened his presents. The 'winner' was a 'Twinkie-holder'. Yes he uses it.

 Finally it was dark enough to start the movie. We piled every sleeping bag, quilt, blanket, comforter, & pillow known to this little 1/4 acre of earth on the back lawn and the boys snuggled in to watch "The Perfect Game", a darling little flick about the Mexican National Little League Team.

All of the boys parents told me the next day they had the best time ever. I was just glad they stayed put in my back yard until they all got picked up at 11:00 P.M. My mother of the year status would be in jeopardy if I lost someones kid. They are all very good boys and we were glad to have them celebrate with us. Happy 12th Jake... Love you, Mom.

Party Bride Style!!!

I was recently asked to help plan a Bridal Shower for a friend of mine. You know me... I'm a sucker for a good party so of course I was all in! We decided on a brunch open house.  We brainstormed and came of with an easy, but yummy menu. Quiche, mini muffins and sweetrolls, fruit cabobs, crackers & goat cheese, pasta salad with chicken and red grapes. For beverages we had a coffee bar, lemon & cucumber water, and the piece de resistance... Mimosas!!  We picked up some fresh flowers from Costco and vased them up in Mason Jars with twine around the neck. We put tea light candles in mini mason jars. Table linens were country chic with white linen, ecru lace, and a burlap runner. Because we're not 'game people' , We had a cute little scrapbook for people to write marital advice in, and envelopes for people to self address to save the bride some time & stress with her thank you's!

Haley's gorgeous fruit cabobs. Aren't they pretty?

The Bride Carly, and her Mama Michelle

Our table presentation, yummy right?

Nieces of the Bride & 2 of my fave girls, Hadlie & Gracie

Me... The Bride Carly... & Sister & my BFF Haley

Love the expression on the girl on the left ;)

Happy Guests writing in book & envelopes

No blog post is complete without a flower close-up

We had a great turnout. The bride was thrilled and radiant. She received lots of great gifts that will be put to good use (wink wink) We had to rummage through the cupboards for more champagne flutes because everyone wanted a Mimosa (sign of a good party).  Love you Carly... Lots of love & luck to you and Austin!