Flaming Gorge Family Vacation

It has been a tradition in Chad's family (for many years now) to go to Flaming Gorge every summer. Unfortunately, we weren't able to make it last year and were both really bummed out about it. So this year we were determined to go. And we are sure glad we did!!! Most of the time not everyone can make it up for the same week and it's usually a hit and miss with everyone's schedules, but for some reason we were there together this time. (Except for Jodi and Mike. We missed ya!)
For those of you who don't know, Chad's family is really big into water skiing. And I mean really big into it. I don't think I can fully explain the passion that they all have for the sport. Luckily for them, most of us who have married into the family have either come in with the same passion, or have developed a love of it as well. So we spend a lot of the vacation time skiing the reservoir. The best time and water to ski is in the early morning. So we usually wake up early and hit the water. Unfortunately for me, I've done most of my skiing in the"bathtub" water of Lake Mead, Nevada. Needless to say, I've become a little spoiled. I'm not a big fan of Utah's colder water temperatures, so I have a tendency to avoid jumping into 70 degree water at 7:30 in the morning. I've done it before, but opted out this year. So I did my skiing in the afternoon with all the boat chop. It wasn't very pretty, but lots of fun.
After the morning skiing we would go back to camp, grab some breakfast, make some lunches, and head to the beach. During the day it's harder to go skiing with so much boat traffic, so we would usually go for rides on the tube, swim, or build sand castles. In the afternoon, just like clockwork, storms would roll in so we would usually come back early and hang out before dinner. After eating and cleaning up we would either head out to go fishing, catch crawdads, or go for a quick ride on the motorcycle. It seems like most of our vacations we are keeping busy doing so many different things. It was nice to get away from work and life and just relax on the lake doing nothing.

4th of July Family Reunion

Every 4th of July Chad and I head to my Grandpa's cabin near Cedar City for an extended family reunion. I love going and spending time with family up in the mountains away from the world!!And I was particularly excited about going this year. Some of my cousins that I hadn't seen in quite awhile were able to make it this year and I was really anxious to see them and catch up with everyone. Unfortunately not everyone was able to make it. I suppose that happens as families get bigger and start spreading out. (We missed all of you and hope to see you next time around) In spite of missing over half of our total family members we had a good size group and tons of fun.

For those of you who are not familiar with our family rituals let me fill you in on what we like to do at the cabin. First of all we love playing games. Games, games ,and more games. Usually you can find a small group of people huddled around a table in some obscure part of the cabin playing some type of game. (9 times out of 10 that game is Make-a-Million)

Playing Make-a-Million. Chad and I slaughtered my Dad and Grandpa.

My Mom, cousin Kathy, and Aunt Teresa doing a puzzle.

My cousin Clayton and my brother Kurtis playing bumper pool out on the deck.

The board game Trains.

More Make-a-Million.

Like I said......we love playing games!! Second thing we like doing is to just sit around and talk. Chad always gives me a hard time about the noise level that we are able to produce. The problem is you get one group talking while a group right next to them is carrying on another conversation. As you can imagine it gets a little noisy with all of these little groups trying to compete with each other. That's why a bunch of us choose to escape from the constant gibber jabber and go riding in the mountains.

My brother Kenneth with his little girl.


My nephew Elden waiting to go for a ride GQ style.


My cousin Connie and her little girl. (Spoiler Alert: Connie has blonde hair now!)


My sister-in-law Alyna with my niece.

Last but not least we love taking naps. You have to realize that we are usually up into the early hours of the morning so we try to catch up on the Z's when and where we can. (Unfortunately, I didn't catch a shot of Jeff.)



When we're not busy playing games, talking, or catching up with a quick nap you can find some of us: playing with the kids, cleaning the fish that were caught that morning, changing the occasional tire, or just sitting around.

Me with some of the kids on the "Flintstones" car.


My Dad cleaning the latest catch.


My nephew Bennett checking out the latest catch.


We had two flat tires this trip. One on my Uncle Gale's van and the other on our four-wheeler. Bummer!!!


Aunt Teresa and Aunt Vicki