Summer/Lake Powell

We celebrated Father's Day in Lake Powell this week.  I am so grateful that I had a wonderful father who taught me the gospel of Jesus Christ and shared with me his love for the scriptures and history and was able to interconnect history, science, and the gospel.  He showed the connection between history and the scriptures in his book, "The Time of Jacob's Trouble." (Finished and published when my dad was 92 years old). If you haven't yet read it, you should.  It's excellent!  I am so amazed at all my dad accomplished in his life.  His ability to love and to forgive was a great example for his children.  

I'm also so blessed to have an amazing husband who has been a great father to our children.  He's also given them an example to follow of love and service, and so many other things. 

 We went to Lake Powell with Adrienne and AJ for 8 days, so I didn't write a letter last week.  I am going to highlight a few things from last week:

This is the scoresheet on Gunnar's golf tournament in the Oklahoma State Golf Camp in Stillwater.  He took first place.  He's a very talented golfer because he practices a lot.  

While we were in Lake Powell, Avie and Camden (and family) came over to
 pick our strawberries and to give the kids a chance to try out the Talon.

Foster, she's such a happy little girl

Roy and I went over to Nick's houe to see his snakes.  Ila found out at a field trip that she also likes snakes, so Adrienne, Ila, Finn and Cub met us there.  Ila held all the snakes but Finn was a little more reticent.  Soon he was trying them out, too.

Effie, Ila and Nick.  Ila has a baby snake in her hands

    Roy with Effie; Ila with a larger snake

Jieun's painting of a moose that she sold last year has finally been hung

 in the halls of Primary Children's Hospital.  It looks beautiful

Yuli's sisters gave her a new experience. 

Dan took his three youngest on a hike up South Deuel Creek Trail near our home.  It's 4.03 miles to the waterfall and they went all the way.  There's a rope swing about half way up and Yuli had a great time being pushed. 

Dojin, Yuna, Yuli and Dan

We left for Lake Powell on Saturday morning.  It's a long drive to Page, Arizona, about 6 hours plus stops.  When we arrived, they had their boat launched.  The ramp is between two rock walls that was made with dynamite blasts,  so no one is allowed to launch their own boat, it's too narrow and requires some skill.  After their boat was launched, Roy got on the boat (I don't remember who went with him) and everyone else got on the houseboat.  The houseboat is large enough that they need someone to pilot it out of the Marina.  After it was in the clear, AJ began driving.  Usually, he starts driving from the main floor and after it's safe, he moves up to drive on top.  Unfortunately a mouse had chewed through the cable that allowed him to switch the steering over, so he had to stay on the main floor to drive.  The view is a lot better on the top and ability to see rocks, etc. increases.  Luckily the water isn't nearly as low as it was the last time we went to Lake Powell 4 or 5 years ago.

I had a miracle happen this trip that I want to share.  On the first full day of the trip I went paddle boarding.  I'm well balanced and didn't fall, but when I was back by the houseboat I decided to try a little "paddle board yoga."  I lost my balance and fell into the water.  Because I kind of fell straight down, my sunglasses came off.  I wasn't worried because I was wearing a strap around my neck that connected to my sunglasses, but they went straight up and over my head.  I caught the strap to the paddle board and thought I'd caught my glasses.  I was wrong.  They'd sunk to the bottom.  I needed these glasses because I can't read outside without them.  Also, they were brand new and prescription strength.  I went to the bedroom and prayed.  I told Heavenly Father that I hadn't had a lot of success with "pray and find," but we're told that anything that is important to us is important to God and that he listens to our prayers and knows our thoughts and feelings.  I told Him that these glasses were important to me so that I could enjoy the trip. I pleaded with him that we could find them.  I then offered Gunnar and his two friends (twins Caleb and Gavin Jacobs) some money if they would dive for it.  I also spent about 15 minutes diving from the boat into the water.  Caleb said he saw the glasses which gave us the motivation to keep trying.  After a little while it was lunch time.  I told the boys that the offer was good until we found the glasses or until we left Lake Powell.  We ate lunch and while some of us were visiting, Gavin (the twin who was less comfortable swimming and diving) came upstairs with a huge smile on his face, sunglasses in hand.  I was so happy and so grateful, I immediately went back to my bedroom to thank Heavenly Father for helping Gavin to find the glasses.  They were in at least 12 feet of somewhat murkey water with weeds all about.  Gunnar had tried for about 5 minutes and gave up.  I'm sure he thought it would be impossible to find them.  Thankfully the twins were motivated to keep trying.  They both worked so hard that we payed Caleb a little money, too.

Caleb, Gunnar and Gavin (my hero)

Adrienne and AJ have 1/2 of a share out of a total of 8 shares in the houseboat. Brennon and Jocelyn Browns own the other half.  Together they get one week during prime time.  They get the first week in the summer which may be the best possible week.  We found some connections with the Browns.  Jocelyn is the daughter of Brad and Tammy Brower.  She lived in the Oblad's ward during her teen-age years and her sister Mindy dated John (or Stephen, I can't remember).  Brad Brower served in the Stake Presidency of the Young Single Adult ward when Roy served on the High Council in the same stake.  They knew each other well.  Tammy Brower is the daughter of President Ballard, which means she was in my stake growing up, though she spent her teen years out of the country when her dad was a mission president.  Tammy met her husband Brad while he was on his mission in the same mission.  Tammy's youngest sister Brynn was a close friend of Christine; she married Peter Huntsman (the 2nd son of John Huntsman senior).  Brennon's father died from cancer a couple of years ago, but their connection with the Ballards gave them an in at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and he received the best of care.  They were a nice couple and we got along well.  Both Adrienne and Jocelyn had invited another family to come--Adrienne invited the Sanford's.  They were easy to like and we enjoyed getting to know them (they had four children and a guest).  Their youngest child, Summer, was 4 and soon warmed up to Roy and me.  She even called me grandma, once.  The other couple, invited by Jocelyn, were Laura and Paul (?).  They had 3 children.  All in all we had 17 children on the boat and 10 adults.  It was a crowd, but fun.  We had our own room and found at least some peace and quiet each day.

Roy spent some time helping the kids fish and several kids caught bluegill.  Summer wanted to touch, but obviously didn't enjoy the experience as she said, "YUCKY, yucky, yucky fish."  Ila touched, but she liked it.  The bluegill were plentiful and they took a few nips at some of us.  It stung momentarily like a bee sting, but didn't last.

One of the Brown children, Owen, was kind of a loner and didn't always want to go out on the boat.  One afternoon he was told he had to go because there was no one to watch him.  He said, "What about Ollie's grandma."😊 I was fine to let him stay behind.  

It sounds like we didn't ever go out on the boat.  We did, but chose not to try surfing or wake boarding because we weren't sure our bodies would enjoy crashing over and over.

More pictures from Lake Powell:

Ila, fishing with grandpa

Finn preferred wake boarding

Gunnar, Adrienne; both were working on their 360's

Finn with a big smile.  He's definitely having a good time.

Roy with Jocelyn;  He sent this picture to her dad, Brad Brower, his friend from
the young single adult stake.  He said to give his Little Red a hug.

prepping food for dinner.  We ate delicious and healthy meals 

(and I few not so healthy treats)

Top picture, showering before bed.  We thought we'd be showering in lake water, but it was all fresh.  There is a shower spigot above Ollie's head, but my guess is they just rinsed off in the lake.  

Adrienne, Ila and me getting some sun

This was our daily view

Adrienne and AJ

Sandra Sanford at left, brought all these beads.  The kids spent hours making bracelets and anklets.  
Summer, Ila, and Tess on the right.

Gavin Jacobs, Davis Sanford, Finn

Ila and Tessa.  These two are three years apart, but they were glued
together at the hip for the whole trip.

Adrienne,  cool trick

The final night, Gunnar put on an amazing fireworks show for everyone.  After the show, after they were back from the rock where they'd lit the fireworks, we looked over and saw the fire.  Everything was rock there, but if the wind picked up and took the fire over to the weeds, it wouldn't have been good.  Gunnar and his friends grabbed the fire extinguishers and made an attempt to oust the fire.  They didn't work and ran out after 30 seconds.  To be honest, I don't know how they finally got the fire out, but they did, so all was well.

On the last day of our trip we were taking cushions upstairs to reinstall them on the couch.  The kids had been using them to sleep in the cool part of the houseboat where it's air conditioned.  Gunnar picked up a cushion and saw what he thought was a mouse, but on closer inspection saw that it was a small bat.  It was obviously injured.  After debating how to handle it (they can carry rabies), I gave Gunnar two cups to capture the bat.  I'm sure it would have been hard if it could fly.  Gunnar carried it to the screened window in a corner where it can unzip and dropped it out.  It fell into the water where it almost certainly drowned, but I think it would have died anyway.  I guess bats can swoop into the houseboat down the stairwell from the top floor.  Adrienne pays someone to clean the houseboat when they're done, but it's still a lot of work to gather everyone's things, unload, and get everyone up to the parking lot.  Me and Roy were in charge of driving the boat back to the ramp and getting the boat off the lake.  We had to call and request to be pulled out.  There was a slight hiccup when they couldn't find AJ's name or his number, but after Brennon Brown got off the boat, he showed them AJ's vehicle and found his keys.