Our California Family Come to Utah

 Friday evening Tucker, Jamie and the girls drove into the driveway.  They arrived about 8:00 p.m. and were exhausted from the long drive but happy to be here and we were so excited to have them here.

Even though everyone was exhausted we still stayed up until after midnight just catching up on their journey that day and what the plans were for Saturday.

Everyone slept in Saturday morning and we didn't get away until after 10:00 to head up to Tibble Fork and then to Silver Lake Flats.  Maren and her family had gone up at 6:00 a.m. to make sure we had a picnic area where we could have dinner.  She said that Boston and Brock slept in some hammocks that they strung up between the trees.  It was a good thing Maren went up early because every picnic area was taken by 9:00 a.m.  Thanks to Maren and Greg for doing that for us.  We all gathered in the picnic area before heading up to the Silver Lake.  You can see that Maren even thought of table coverings.  Everyone gathered around so greet the Maxfields and then we headed up to the lake.

Tucker and Greg catching up.  They are good friends.

You can see that Jamie is the center of attention.  Everyone wanted a hug and to visit.

Tucker and Greg still catching up.

Once we had unloaded the cars and had a chance for everyone to say "hi" it was time to head up to the lake.  There are two lakes.  A big one and then 3 miles above that a smaller one.  We chose to go up to the smaller one.  It was a bumpy 3 mile dirt road.  But we all made it safely.  Unloaded our lunches and the kayaks and headed over to the very, very low lake.  Utah is experiencing a serious drought this year and the lakes in the mountains are extremely low.  But that didn't curtail the excitement of being together and able to kayak.  Mindy and her family had arrived up at the lake earlier and ended up on the other side of the lake.  So people kayaked back and forth to see each other.

Jamie and Neal hauling stuff over from the car.  

Jamie and Neal getting the dining fly set up.  

Mindy coming across the lake to see everyone.

Getting ready for lunches.

Chilling in the shade and enjoying each other's company and good food.  Everyone was in charge of bringing their own lunch.  I packed ours and brought everything but the kitchen sink and the meat!!  I couldn't believe that I forgot the turkey for the sandwiches.  Luckily enough, Maren had brought extra so we were able to have some meat on our sandwiches.  

Annie getting her kayak up and ready to launch.

Maren's cute little dog, Kiva, came along for the day.  She had been in the water and was so cold she was shaking so Maren but her under a towel to get warm.

Can't fully enjoy a day at the beach without your diet coke!!

Maren's little puppy just coming out of the water. 

Andrew found a couple dead fish and wanted to bring them to shore but he didn't get one positive vote on that idea.  He was told repeatedly to throw them back in the water.  

Mallory and Brinkley played for hours in the water.  Brinkley loves the water and loves to swim out and retrieve the water toy.  

Peyton, Brock and Maren.

Lexi, Jordyn Lyn and Maren.  Darling picture.

Lyndsy and Jamie just coming in from a ride across the lake.

Lexi being her cute self and posing.

Desmond out on the water tackling the Kayaks by himself.  He did a good job.

Lynda Ann playing with Brinkley who must have retrieved that same toy 100+ times!  He loves the water!

Here come the twins!

Mr. Boston chillin on the shore.

Still enjoying my cold diet coke!

After spending most of the afternoon at the lake we decided it was time to head back down to the picnic  area the Maren had reserved for us.  We all got in our cars and Tucker realized that he was on fumes in his car!!  He went around asking people if he could buy some gas off of them but to no avail.  So then we decided that maybe we could syphon gas from Annie's car into his.  Well, the hose wasn't long enough and Tucker basically sucked up fumes.

We decided that we would follow him down the road to our picnic area.  It would be all down hill and he could pretty much coast most of the way.  So we left and thank goodness made it safe and sound to the picnic area.  We had a great evening of eating good food and visiting until dark.

The area up by the lake was like walking on the moon!  Every step you took a cloud of dust came up around you.  It was like the cartoon Peanuts and Pig Pen.  He always had a cloud of dust around him.  Jamie and I took off our shoes and had to take a picture of how dirty our feet were.

Tucker had a brand new camera and he was taking lots of fun pictures.  He rounded up everyone and took this family shot.  It is great.  Thanks Tucker for doing this.  

Hayley reading her book.  

We had such a fun day and evening in the mountains.  Jaden was the only one who didn't make it.  Apparently he did come up but couldn't find us so we never joined up.  We missed him.  We headed home just a dusk.  Tucker was in the front of us and we hoped that he would be able to pretty much coast all the way down the canyon.  What we found out later was that the gas needle wasn't reading properly and he actually had a good quarter of a tank.  So he was able to drive all the way down the canyon to the nearest gas station.

To sum up the day and at the end of the day this is pretty much what we all looked.