Tahoe . . . part one

July 3 – July 7th we trekked on over to Lake Tahoe, Ca to join the Spencer family camping. We always seem to find fun at the gas stations and such along the way. It just makes it more fun. We traveled via the Extraterrestrial Hwy. We only wished we had a sticker to add to the sign! Erin and her handy pink mirror ;)  I got moved to the back seat after we stopped at Carson City, NV for a big Costco run. The entire front seat was filled with food for the week. Yuuummmmm! The first view we got of Lake Tahoe while driving. That lake is beautiful and huge!! We decided that if Grace was ever in need of a job she could at least get hired here!! We arrived before the Spencer family. So everyone decided that they must have fruit loops while waiting for them. Nothing like a bowl of cereal! Miss Grace, all ready for bed! The low was 40 degrees, so we cuddled up at night! The daytime highs we in the low 80’s, so it was perfect! Yea! Finally we’re all together. Colson, Spenc, Zac, Ryan, Justin, Jace, Grace, Josh & Erin all ready to go on a hike. An over the back of my head photo (above) and the boys trying to hitch hike on the looong 2 mile hike we took. Ha. There was an awesome visitors center that had a glass wall under ground, so you could see the inside of the river. It was really cool, but apparently not cool enough for a picture. Ha.  Hanging out on the bridge! And, below, the LOVE of my LIFE!! Love you JC!!We enjoyed nice hiking adventures in the morning, then we had lunch and took off for the lake. What fun that was!! The water was crystal clear and a tad bit cold, but we all still swam in it….everyone except Steve that is. Look at that sunburn! I mean, tan!! The lifejackets and tubes were a huge hit. So glad we had them so we could really enjoy the lake without worrying about anyone having any trouble. It was a must to have a lifejacket if you were swimming out to the pole! One of the highlights was this pole you could swim out to, climb up and jump off. Spencer braved it first.   Followed by Jeremy. And then by Erin, the koala bear (this picture makes me laugh so hard!) Love you Er! Justin was also brave enough to go off of it! Brotherly love at it’s finest.   Splash wars and floating in tubes, another highlight.

Last but not least, squishing as many people as possible into one of our cars at the entrance to the lake so only one of us paid for parking. Ha. 13 people in a Suburban. (it was 4th of July and parking that day was almost three times as much as a regular day!)  It worked. Good thing it was only for about 40……seconds!!

By the time we all got back to camp, everyone was hungry from a long afternoon at the lake. (that morning our crafty miss Lynda had stuff for us all to make tye dye 4th of July shirts, they hung out to dry while we played all day!) Bbq hamburgers, chips, watermelon, baked beans, carrots/ranch, soda, licorice…what else could you ask for? It was an awesome 4th of July dinner! The boys all got awfully creative with their licorice!! Happy 4th of July! (something must have been funny??) Ha. Unfortunately the white shirt I brought for Jer to tye dye all ready had been used for a previous craft and had a big hole cut out of it (what the heck?? must have been girls camp, haha). So he tye dyed his socks.  Who would  have thought that our morning and evening fires were all stoked with huge pinecones!! We had to buy two boxes of firewood, (logs), but the majority of all of our food and water for hot chocolate was heated up / cooked via pinecones!! We had to send kids out on pine-cone hunts since we used them all up around our campsites. Jace & Grace were buddies pretty much the entire trip. After dinner we played some nice games of poker with fruit loops as the poker chips. Steve really knows his game! It was a great 4th of July! We loved every minute of our camping trip with the Spencer family. Part two, coming soon!