Lake Powell

We went to Lake Powell (in Utah) in the beginning of July and I am finally getting all the pictures put in one centralized place. Lake Powell is my favorite place in the whole world. I've gone every year of my life - sometimes more than once. This year we had 17 people on our 72' houseboat. The houseboat is like a house - it has 3 TV's, an ice maker (that could be a washer and drier), a trash compacter, stove, oven, mircowave, 2 fridges, 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms etc, etc, etc. Its nice, to say the least. Of the 17 people that went, 11 were "kids" ranging from 9 to 22 years old. We went with both my aunts, my dad's sister and my mom's sister and both their families. Each person has their own favorite thing to do - But my favorite thing to do is fish! I love to catch striped bass - striper fishing is the best fishing I've ever done and I look forward to it each time we're there. The two boys on the left are my counsins, Chris and Greg. They've come to Lake Powell with us most every time we go and I love when they come. It's so much fun since we're all around the same age. (Ps. Go Redsox! - you can't really see it, but Nick and I are wearing B-town hats)

Kayla, in the middle of Nick and I, is my little twin. We look relatively identical - especially when we were young. Compare her 18 month picture to mine and you can't tell who is who. What makes it even "weirder" is that her and her sister are adopted into our family.

Chris, Jess, me and Greg enjoying the time at Lake Powell - I may not have many friends, but I have a family that would do anything for me, and for that, I'm grateful.

Haha - We were playing around one night taking pictures and my sister took this one of me.

Long story short, Nick fought this fish for, I kid you not, 35 minutes. It would not come to the surface and he was only using 6lb test and didn't want it to break his line so he took his time. When it got to the surface, Nick was less than impressed that it was just like the others we were catching. I felt really bad for him because he had such high hopes for a lunker.

I'm so glad Nick comes with us. I can't imagine being away from him for a week. He didn't go the first year we were together because we'd only been together a few months but he's gone every year since and its so much fun when he comes - he tends to lighten even the lightest of moods.

This is on the top of our houseboat - we got a terrible rain storm the day we came back into the dock. We pulled in and not 5 minutes later, it started to down pour. If we were caught out in the lake in this, it would have been pretty scary but the Man Upstairs was watching us this day. So we decided to test fate and slide on our feet and tummy across the SLIPPERY top deck. Of course Nick was the one who thought of it, and the one who got hurt - messed up his already bad knee really bad but it was tons of fun. Oh - and when the rain let up, we grabbed the hose and squirted it down again!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Nick - his smile is so genuine. Everyone else went out in the little boats to play out in the open water and Nick and I stayed back on the houseboat. We fished for small mouth bass and Nick caught 7 in 30 minutes. I loved seeing his excitement each time he caught a fish and it was just a super day for us.

This is a somber moment - we were getting ready to take up the anchors and head back to the dock. It was a great trip but I wish we could have stayed longer. (L to R: Nick, Me, Jess (sister) mom, dad)

Group picture before we headed out. All 17 of us.

This was the best trip, thus far. I can't wait for next year!!