Back to Tahoe...

but this time with Daddy! 

We headed up to the lake last Friday for a quick weekend.  All FOUR of us!  We had an awesome time and came home sandy, sleepy and a little scraped up (Natalie took a tumble at the beach a few minutes before we hit the road home on Sunday so she's been nursing some owies this week, poor bug!)

On Saturday we went rafting down the Truckee.  This is the second year in a row we've gone and we all love it. 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday night our good friend, Beth, came up to visit and watched the girls while Corey and I finally used a two year old gift certificate to a really lovely little restaurant in Crystal Bay.  The girls LOVED Beth as much as we LOVED our dinner and time alone!  Thank you, Beth!  Or as Audrey insisted on calling her all night, Babysitter.  Thank you, Babysitter!

 

On Sunday we went to a super fun beach party hosted by Corey's company.  The kids had a great time playing in the water and the sand and Corey loved having a long beach day with them. 

We headed home in the late afternoon on Sunday pretty wiped out...but in a good way.

 

Audrey fell asleep watching a video

(that's the headset headband across her face)

And this is poor Natalie's scraped and bruised little self.

 

Super fun weekend!  Hope there's another one soon!

The San Francisco Zoo

Last weekend we headed to the San Francisco Zoo.  It was the first time I'd been there since I was a kid.  I remember being so cold when we visited that August that we raided the trunk for just-purchased school clothes that were only slightly warmer than the summer outfits we had mistakenly chosen to wear that day.  Consequently, 25 Augusts later, I dressed us for the arctic for a trip to the zoo!  And I think everyone was grateful for all the layers as it didn't really warm up until we were about to leave.

We got there early and spent an hour or so at Ocean Beach before the zoo opened, collecting shells and sand dollars and a little piece of string that Audrey decided was going to be her pet worm named Drizzly Syrup.  Seriously. Can't. Make. This. Stuff. Up.  It was cool and foggy and windy but it felt great to smell the ocean, feel the spray, watch a few surfers and walk in the sand.

 The zoo was great.  A really nice collection of animals and habitats.  There was an insect room that had the kids totally fascinated for almost an hour.  I think Corey and I could have left to go grab lunch and they wouldn't have missed us.  It was just nice to spend time as a family.  With Corey's work schedule what it's been the last few months there haven't been many days that the four of us (well, the five of us, I guess, if you count Drizzly Syrup) have spent doing something fun together.

 The penguins were Audrey's favorite part.  And I must admit

they were adorable.  So full of energy and spunk.  No wonder

Audrey connected with them!

 She's a California girl now!

 Last Halloween, I'm pretty sure this is

what Natalie was picturing her peacock tail feathers

would look like.  But at $5 a feather at the craft store,

her plumage looked like it had been plucked compared to this!

 Natalie's favorite exhibit was the flamingos.

She said they looked like ballerinas...they balance on one leg

and look like they're wearing pink tutus.  Pretty clever comparison!

Equal parts creepy and cute.

Tilden Park

We discovered a really cool regional park in Berkeley last week.  It's just so awesome when you realize there is something really lovely basically in your backyard.  That's how this felt.  A quick 30 minute drive and we were up a foggy mountain in another world.  What brought us to Tilden was a little farm that I'd read about where kids could feed cows and pigs and goats and chickens and an attached nature center to learn about all sorts of plant and animal life.  Natalie especially can't get enough of farms and the four leggeds that live there so I knew we had to go.

 Come to find out the little farm (aptly named The Little Farm) was just one of the sights worth seeing there.  There were trails and picnic tables, a carousel (totally random thing to come across in an otherwise very wooded, natural landscape) a steam train and a lake.  We decided to save the train for a day when Daddy could join us but tackled the rest and had an amazing time.

We drove there in a very thick sea of fog.  I actually don't think I've ever driven in fog so heavy.  Of course, the kids thought it was the greatest.  While I could tell we were winding up a mountain as we neared the park, I had no idea until we drove home that that mountain was, in fact, quite high and that off one side of the road was a cliff making this view possible. 

Well, hello, Bay! 

Great day.  Can't wait to go back and ride the train!
 

Cousins

Then

And now

 

When we were in Tahoe last week, Aimee, Ryan, Ashley and I recreated a photo that has been hanging in the cabin for years.  Said photo has provided quite a bit of entertainment over the last 3 decades as it is quite hilarious how I look nothing like the rest of them!  I always think of that Sesame Street snippet from when we were kids, "which one is not like the other?" where four squares on the screen framed three like things and one really different thing  and we all tried to shout the answer at the TV before the square showing the different thing darkened. While my sister and cousins would get tan just like I would throughout the summer, they would never get quite AS tan.  And the tanner they got, the lighter their hair would get, while mine would stay the color of a dark roast coffee bean!  The funny part is, I think I'm the palest of all of us now!

But cousin time at the lake is precisely what I remember the most about being there as a kid.  So, I'm happy that our kids got to spend some time with their cousins while we visited this summer. 

 

 The whole group! 

I think I already posted this picture but I

really like it so I'm posting it again!

 Emma & Natalie

 Natalie, June, Reese and Audrey

John & Natalie

 

Such fun!

Tahoe Trip

You know it's been a great summer when you don't have time to blog about your summer.  We had barely caught our breath and unpacked our luggage from our trip to Michigan when it was time to pack up the car and head to Tahoe for a week (rough life, I know).  Such a great week.  Auntie Ashley and  Uncle Paul were there.  Papa Rod and Grandma Lala were there...it was a full house and a ton of fun!  The only one missing, once again, was Daddy!  Hopefully this is the last crazy summer and he won't miss these trips in the future.

We started the week with a lunch on the lake with GGMa, GGPa, Aunt Karen and cousin John.  So great to see everyone!

The next day we hit the beach with Aunt Jackie, Uncle Mike, Cousins Aimee, Emma, Ryan, Jamie, Reese, June and Baby Jace.  It was cool and very windy but we just ate and talked and ate and talked and didn't really think about the weather.  Amazing what kind of weather you can ignore when there's enough food around!

 A whole mess of cousins who all grew up

(and are currently growing up)

loving Lake Tahoe. 

One of the highlights of our trip (at least for Natalie) was face painting at the craft fair, courtesy of Papa Rod and Grandma Lala.  Natalie would have loved to keep her face painted for a month but Audrey was freaking out before Papa Rod even paid the face painter that hers was "itchy" and she wanted it off, off, off!  Oh well!  It was so pretty that I hated to wash it off so soon!

Love this little stinker and her pouty painted face!

Mercy!

 

The great part about the cabin is that very little ever changes from year to year!  Bruno the giant bear, the hot tub that just keeps ticking, and the loft filled with treasures and trinkets and tons of cobwebs...our girls have as much fun there as I did 30 years ago!

And, of course, the beach never disappoints.  It was cooler than usual much of the week but we still had a lot of beach time.  My very favorite place in the world to have lunch is on the beach at Lake Tahoe!

 The girls hard at work with beach business

and Grandma Lala filming it!

 

 Thanks to Ash and Paul for a lot

of the great pics throughout the week.

On the last day of our trip we were able to meet up with our friends, Kelly, Owen and Adler.  We meet every year for a beach day but this year was especially great as they moved to Texas last December and we weren't sure we would be able to coordinate vacation time at the lake.  But we did and it was a great day.  The kids get along so well it's a shame we can't play more often!

 

 Two lucky kiddos that get such great summer

vacation destinations!

This is one of my favorite pictures..

Grandma Lala and Natalie enjoying a picture perfect

day in the water with their glamour hats!

Thanks for a great trip, everyone!