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!