Lake Tahoe

April 8, 2010

Natasha's friend Taylor came and spent Spring break with us. She had never been to Lake Tahoe so we took a day trip up to the Mountains. It was so nice! The weather was perfect and because its not yet tourist season the beaches were practically empty. We all had a nice relaxing, fun afternoon.The above picture was taken above the famous Emerald Bay.

Everyone loaded up in the van ready to go. We didn't know if it was going to be hot, cold, sunny or snowy so we packed for everything. The weather and road report had said that part of the hwy around Lake Tahoe was closed due to an avalanche watch.

We stopped at Zephr Cove Beach first, we could tell that it was still winter in the mountains!

Our awesome shadow picture on the dock. The water is so amazingly clear.We didn't get to take a cruise on the MS Dixie II this time around, it was still too early in the year but we did get a picture. Notice the snow on the mountains on the other side of the lake. After alot of begging from kids who wanted very little to do with the dock or the boat we hit the beach. Clayton was so impatient to get in the water that he kept stripping his pants down everywhere. we had to tell him 4 times to get his pants back on because we're not ready to swim in the water yet.All of the younger kids were anxious to get in the water. We however did not pack swimsuits because I knew that the water temperature was no where near being able to swim in it yet so the younger kids stripped off their shoes, socks and pants and hit the water. The funnies one of all was Clayton, he ran into the lake at top speed and was up to his waist hyperventalating before he could stop and turn around!!!  :):) You so totally had to be there. Everyone still had a blast wading in the water along the shore, even Allen got in on the action. Britten spent alot of time collecting crawdad pinchers. He had never seen anything like that before and found them very fascinating. He was very proud of his collection. The best part about the whole day was just letting the kids run off and play and piddle around with whatever interested them. Just letting the kids be themselves, wet and dirty and the whole nine yards!You can get an idea of how cold the water was by noticing how red everyones feet are!

This snow man was perfectly white before the kids knocked it over, makes you wonder where they got the snow from to build it? or how long its been there?Can you tell what Kylee's sitting on? Pretty funny.When we got Emerald Bay the snow was up to the kids knees. Most of them chose not to get their warm stuff and they ran around like half dressed lunatics in the snow. Kylee actually ran through knew deep snow carrying her flip flops because she was too impatient to wait for everyone in front of her to go first. I can't believe how big these boulders are!

I could add a ton of phots of just the scenery, its so gorgeous up there but instead I'm going to put in just one of my favorite shots. Beach, water, dock, ship, trees, mountains and big blue sky. I got it all baby!