Exciting times!

Miriam finally got her permit!! We are all so excited, and have mostly been keeping it to parking lots and the neighborhood so far. We'll graduate to bigger streets soon. She's doing great!!

Heaven on Earth...

This year the DW Runyans ventured to Lake Powell for a family reunion. It has always been a favorite place for our family to hang out, and I was super excited to share it with Archie and the girls. Everyone had a great time. We loved spending time with family, especially in such an amazing setting.



We LOVE this place!!

Miriam, Nathan, Rebekah and Joanna at Rainbow Bridge.

Rebekah and my sister, Jen, lounging on top of the houseboat.

Archie and Joanna...day one....they were still getting a feel for the place.


Nathan, Becky, Rebekah and Jen.


Grandma, Joanna and Hannah. We had so much trouble taking this picture! I think we seriously had to try 4 or 5 times....someone was always blinking! That's why we LOVE digital photography! Turned out super cute, though.


The grandkids on top of the houseboat...most of Todd's kids weren't there yet. :(


Nathan, Becky, Joanna and Rebekah.


Archie and Miriam


Becky and Nathan...is he sleeping or faking? I still don't know for sure.


Becky and Archie at Rainbow Bridge. It was so nice that the water was high...made the hike bearable.


Some of our very generous family members arranged for us to use this houseboat every year. It is a great boat, with lots of room and some really cool features. It's amazing how many people we had on that boat and all the cool stuff that it can do!!

We started at Antelope Point, and headed up the lake for a while...almost to the San Juan. Our campsite for the first few days of the trip is pictured above. It was a great site...lots of afternoon shade, very protected from the wind, great campfire spot on the shore.


And we had our own little private bay which was the perfect size for skiing, tubing, jet skiing, wakeboarding, etc. If this pic extended just a little bit more to the right, you'd see the houseboat as pictured above. If I were technologically savvy, I might be able to merge the pics into a cool pano shot. But I'm not...so you'll just have to imagine it.


One of the great things about our campsite was the shore. There was a nice big area for people to hike and explore, still while in-view of the houseboat. The above pic is Rebekah, Tiff and Nathan..but the pic doesn't do it justice. They were WWWAAAAYYYY high on the rocks. One of the uncles was so nice to set up some geo-cashing courses for us...we had fun using the GPS and checking out the scenery.



Hanging out near the Minor's Ladder. The kids were having a great time playing in the water at this rock beach.

I'm aware that this post has a very obvious lack of tube/wakeboard/kneeboard/etc. pictures. Don't worry, we played hard on all of those toys, sustaining many a bruise to prove it. :) You can visit either of my sisters' blogs to see more cool pics, including some hilarious action sequence pictures (all photos taken by the beautiful and talented Jen).

Living with JMT and GDog has some great action shots and another great description of the trip.

JustRandi is always funny.... check out this post for a BEAUTIFUL pic of the lake and/or this one for some funny tube pics.


All in all, it was an amazing trip! We are so thankful for the generosity of our family, and that we are able to return each year. We already have a count-down going on the bulletin board in the kitchen..... can't wait until next year!!