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Kristin's comment in the last post reminded me that I guess I should've said something about how we came upon houseboating, and the details that go into planning that kind of a trip. Many people have asked me about it.

Nine years ago, we visited Lake Powell by accident. I was working for Mariott at the time, and I was going on a trip with Grant's family (we weren't married yet) to the Southwest, so I was trying to book rooms at Mariott's along the way, since I got a pretty steep discount.

I was trying to find a Mariott close to the Grand Canyon, but the closest I found was a Courtyard in this town called Page. I had never heard of it, but we judged the distance, and decided that it would be a decent place to stay.

We drove into Page really late at night, and we couldn't see any of the surroundings, but when we woke up the next morning, we saw this big, beautiful lake in front of us. As we were hanging out at the lake, we saw tons of houseboats on it. Grant and I said at that moment how one day we would come back to Lake Powell and rent a houseboat.

A few years later, we visited Page again with my parents, and again said that one day we would come back and rent a houseboat. It was beginning to seem as if this was just going to be some kind of unfulfilled dream that we just kept talking about.

Until a couple of years ago...

My brother was going over the things on his bucket list, and houseboating on Lake Powell was one of them. We started making plans then. We said that once we got stationed in Los Angeles, it would be close enough for us to drive to Page, and Tony and his wife could just meet us there. Perfect plan, right?

Then I had two kids. So it started feeling like a dream again.

When we were in Pensacola for Thanksgiving last year, we started talking about it, and I suggested we do the houseboat thing this summer. Grant was hesitant, saying the girls would be too small, but I just said that there would always be some kind of an excuse, and if we didn't do it now, we might never do it. We all agreed, and started planning it out.

We did everything online, and rented the houseboat from www.lakepowell.com. We got one of the smaller ones, and booked the trip so that the prices still fell into the off-season pricing (the peak season started the day we turned our boat in). The website is very detailed, and if there was anything we needed, we could call and someone was always willing to help. We decided not to rent any jet skis or any other kind of vessel, because with the girls, it just wasn't feasible. But if it had just been us with no kids, or if they were older, that's totally something we would've done. We stayed for 4 days, and 3 nights, and with the littles, I think that was just the right amount of time.

The boat was way more spacious than I had in mind. The kitchen was awesome - it had a full-sized refrigerator, gas stove and oven, and there was a grill on the deck. We had one bedroom, but we ended up not even using it. Tony and Mere slept on the upper deck outside...Grant and I slept on the couch that pulled out to a bed...Kendall slept on the table that converted into a bed...and we brought the pack and play for Cami, which there was ample room for.

There you have it! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments and I'll answer back. I would highly recommend this trip - it was amazing, and I hope we can do it again someday.