Survivor: Lake Powell Edition

Going Powelling.

That's how Mackayla puts it.

This is one of the most anticipated weeks of the year for my family.

Here's most of the crew:

We look like the cast in survivor, no? At least un-showered and unready.
Planned by Amy and Luke,

they chose a Survivor theme for this year
and split us into two tribes

The Orange Mohicans

and The Green Blaster Tribe.

 Green won...is it so clear why? :)

Here's one part of a Challenge

 Voting off players was nixed, mostly because of

...not Stefan and Jessi-

And here's some of our basic Lake Powell Lingo

Accolade

An award or an expression of praise, also known as our houseboat.

The Generator

It's mentioned a lot during the week because it provides access to anything civilized during the week. Even AC thank you thank you.

Poop Dock

The place where poop is - unloaded.

The bathrooms are always carefully monitored, because no one wants to know what happens if they overflow.

The Hole

It depends on which boat.

In the houseboat- the special room that usually someone with a baby gets because there is a cool padded dark section in the bottom of the room with no precarious edges for babies to fall out.

In the "speedy" boat- the huge cupboard that possibly holds everything you could ever needs to survive for two weeks...but mostly a ton of towels and I have no idea what else.

Bullfrog

The marina the houseboat is parked at.

Shoes

 Keens.

The Channel

The "middle" part of Lake Powell, open and often more windy.

Canyons

All the little "fingers" in the lake.

Always a better place for houseboats,

they are fun to drive through because they are so windy and just when you think you've come to the end, it turns a corner and goes on and on.

Coast Guard Approved

Puddle Jumpers.

Easy to put on and easy to move in.

Thank you grandma Bonnie, you saved us from some serious life jacket rash.

Stay tuned for some more of our adventures and favorite memories from this year!

Lake Powell with Cody

Cody

Tubing:

I fell off the tube and I slammed my face on the sides.

I went skiing and I fell down and I went surfing and it was fun. I played in the sand with my cousins and I got new things, like presents.

Favorite things: Tubing, fishing, surfing, kayaking, playing in the sand, and swimming.

When my dad was taking out the hook out of the fish, they have little spiny things,

 it cut his thumb.

The Challenges

We slid down the slide and then someone swam around the boat and then me and Grandpa got the balloons and we went up the stairs and opened them up. Then we finished the mystery puzzle and we won. We won twice and then we kept tie-ing.

The Tooth Trofy

I found this as I was gathering up papers around.

Not sure how this game is played, but it's a pretty sweet trophy

If you notice the scan, the other side shows through to a fierce dragon.

That's pretty much what we talk about these days...dragons.

from Dragon City

Simple Dates

The older two kids went to a birthday party

Since Mackayla is a "big kid" but didn't get to go to the party, we went to get ice cream:)

 Bubble gum ice cream is a full time mom job

and a bad idea in general

But she sure loved it

 Ben and I went on a quick date to the San Clemente pier.
We just strolled along and got some hot chocolate at the end of the pier.

 
Some fishermen caught something cool as we got there...

a sting ray!

 We went to the park one evening. For some odd reason I didn't take any pictures of the kids, just my husband on the climbing wall:)

 Costco is the only place I can coax Cody into going-mostly for the samples-and they talked me into getting a picture with the bear. It's still a major feat (shopping). Summer may be long and foodless for us:)

The kids don't get out of school until June 24th. sheesh

Mama said there'd be days like this

We went to our neighborhood water park for Memorial Day

After a while of playing Macey curled up in her towel and laid there.

I finally took her home- she had come down with a fever.

That night she didn't have a fever.

At about midnight she came in 

Fainted

Then Threw up.

and was saying strange things and walking crooked.

We were up most of the night.

Thinking she had some sort of heat exhaustion I took her to the doctor the next morning to make sure everything was ok.

(Cody had also developed a fever the day before too, but it went away and he seemed fine. He stayed home from school to be 24 hours fever free and came to the doctor with us.)

The doctor said Macey should be just fine and he wasn't concerned about any of the symptoms I described because she seemed alert and just fine today and didn't have a fever.

He checked her lungs.

Then he checked Cody's

Then he checked Mackayla's

They all have walking pneumonia.

(It's the least serious kind.)

That night, after the fifth time Mackayla asked me to take her potty in the last 10 minutes,

I got out a UTI test to check her.

I was trying to coax her to pee on a stick

--I should mention that she insists on being alone while she goes to the bathroom so it was taking a while--

then Cody head butted Macey and got blood all over her blanket and made her tooth a little loose.

Mackayla's test showed up positive.

I called the doc to see if her antibiotics would do double duty on the pneumonia and UTI, all while the kids were screaming.

Luckily Ben was home by this time.

The doctor said it should be okay-the store tests are usually wrong anyway.

All in all, everything was minor

which is awesome and I am SO grateful.

That was a scary night.

The kids have been relatively good considering~

It's almost noon and I am still not dressed but we have made a couple crafts, some zucchini bread, mini bake stuff and an egg crate alligator...

Que PBS cartoons. :)

"Colors"

This is one of my kids' favorite activities.

You need a cookie sheet to hold all the pouring spills.

Good activity to get good at pouring.

I got some little clear containers from BiMart, but I'm sure you could find them anywhere.

 And saved a bunch of medicine containers and all those baby medicine paraphernalia.

Fill a few of the containers and add one or two drops of food coloring to them.

 Teaches coordination and color knowledge.

It's actually one of Macey's favorite things to do.

 This is an awesome winter activity...now that winter is over!