Homeward Bound

On the road again. I just can't wait to get on the road again... - Willie Nelson

Because we were in for another 10-hour drive, we left Tahoe the evening before we planned to arrive at home and stayed overnight at the half-way point (this time, in the town of Yreka, CA). It didn't get dark until after 9:00 PM, so to encourage sleep we gave GG her binky, a book, and some sunglasses to block the light. It worked like a charm!



In fact, Gracie slept so well she didn't want to get up the next morning.



On our way out of town, we stopped for breakfast at this cute little place:



Gracie was confused to no end when we told her the restaurant was called Grandma's Place. She couldn't find her grandma ANYWHERE! Haha!

She did, however, find this pretty little patch of flowers outside:



... as well as this gorgeous butterfly:



Get a load of this giant teddy-bear shaped pancake!



A few hours later, we stopped again to stretch our legs. Gracie made friends with this baby Chihuahua outside a little children's boutique:





Later that afternoon, we made a quick stop to see Rubie and Brenden (since we were in the neighborhood and all). We loved Gracie's special way of wearing her shades:



Here's G enjoying an icy pop:



... and B being cool:



GG and RuRu were mesmerized by Brenden's toy that shot hundreds of feet in the air (and kept getting stuck in trees and/or on the roof):



You could NEVER tell by these pics, but I'd say that these two cousins kinda like each other.
:-)





Although we made lots of stops along the way, we finally arrived home later that night.

P.S. Mission Catch This Blog Up By the End of the Week = NOT accomplished. Oh well. At least I got through our vacation photos. Check back again soon for our remaining summer pics. There are STILL a bunch of 'em.

Final Few Days

Some of the best times during our vacation were those spent relaxing at the condo with the kids. Grace and Ben were a constant source of entertainment! One morning, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire had a dance-off on the coffee table:







... then they did some painting:







One afternoon, we drove into Tahoe City to see the "Fanny Bridge." It's a bridge located above the mouth of the Truckee River where you can watch tons of HUGE trout swim by. The bridge's name comes from the tendency for people to line up along the bridge and bend over the rail to see those big fish (so from certain vantage points, all you see are a bunch of people's fannies). It wasn't very busy the day we visited, but you can see the bridge in the background of this shot:



... and here's one of the enormous trout:



There were some pretty flower beds nearby. Here's Gracie checking out the lupines:



This is a nice shot of Meggie with Baby Gunk on the way:



And here we are using our camera's self-timer mode:



For two evenings, the Sages and we took turns staying back at the condo while the other couple went out on the town. For our night, Chad and I hit some local casinos to play a few slots. Here's Chad pointing at the Welcome to California sign from the Nevada border:



On our final day of vacation, Chad took the kids to a nearby park while the rest of us packed up to leave:









... then the kids got to go swimming one last time:





Sadly, our 2009 summer vacation eventually had to come to an end. We took these parting shots as we got ready to go:





Now we're just counting down the months until our next family vacation!

Rafting the Truckee River

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, we couldn't WAIT for our family vacation this year! Once we started planning the details of our trip to Tahoe, we booked a self-guided rafting trip on the Truckee River. I love to go river rafting, so that was the part of our trip I was looking the most forward to. Here are Grace and Ben waiting to get in the water:



Grace wasn't so sure about things at first. Just as we were pushing off from the dock, we were told to steer clear of rocks. So the entire time we were rafting, Grace took it upon herself to point out every single rock she saw. She was so helpful!





Here are some shots of the beautiful scenery. It was really peaceful on the river.





At a couple spots along the way, Benji was brave enough to jump out of the raft and float along beside us!



... he even let his toy boat have a run of its own:



Since this was a self-guided rafting trip, Chad and Jill were our engines while Megan and I helped steer and watch after the little ones.











Here's a nice family shot:



A couple hours into it, we pulled off and had a picnic lunch. Grace really enjoyed a chance to snuggle with her daddy:



... and Ben had fun playing in the dirt:



But the piece de resistance for Grace was the bus ride back to our car. She was SO excited!



For me, rafting was the best part of our entire vacation. Where we live, there are an abundance of navigable rivers, so hopefully rafting will become a regular part of our summers throughout Grace's childhood.

The Wild, Wild West

This will be just a short post, but I wanted to share our photos from a little side trip we made while we were in Tahoe. The Sages wanted to relax back at the condo for the day, so Chad, Gracie, and I decided to visit the Old West ghost town of Virginia City, about an hour's drive from where we were staying.

For as long as I've known him, Chad has wanted to get our picture taken at one of those old-time photography places. Well... where better to finally do it than at an historic old place like Virginia City? We don't have a scanner anymore, so I can't show you our photo. But... here's a pic of the place we had it taken:



This is a store we went in that had lots of funny gag items, old-fashioned candy, and other fun stuff to look at. Notice the sign Chad's pointing at. We thought that was hilarious.



We stopped for lunch at the Delta Cafe, home of the World Famous Suicide Table (everything in Virginia City was "World Famous"). According to Virginia City legend, more than a few unlucky gamblers offed themselves at that particular table after losing their shirts at a card game called Faro.

After lunch, we took a guided tour of the city. We thought this place sounded interesting. The tour guide told us there were so many gruesome brawls at this saloon back in Virginia City's heyday that when the floors were mopped each night, entire buckets would become filled with blood. Ew!



Gracie was dressed appropriately, dontcha think? Needless to say, she and her outfit got LOTS of attention from passersby. Here she is being silly, trying to entice Chad or me to chase her down the clapboard sidewalk:



Aha! Gotcha!



We had a great time, just the three of us. But then again, we usually do...