the fourth

We, along with the rest of the Bay Area, hit the shores of Lake Tahoe for the long 4th of July weekend this year.  For as much as I love that place, I don't love it so much on the most crowded weekend of the year, but we managed to have a good ol' time anyway.  And in good American (or at least Bayer Family) fashion, we packed our days full of so much fun, that we didn't leave any extra energy to stay up late for fireworks.  Although we did manage to watch the show across the lake for a bit from the deck of the cabin, and I'm not gonna lie…I rather enjoyed just heading back inside to call it a night instead of waiting in lines upon lines of traffic to get home.  Does that make me extra old?  

I drove the kids up by myself for the first time, and Eddy and our friend Cristen drove up later that evening after work.  Now, a 3+ hour drive in and of itself, does not sound terrible.  But I don't think I had prepared myself for how not easy it would be to do by myself with 2 little kiddos in the back seat.  Or rather, how much I do for them usually while Eddy is the one driving.  It wasn't easy!  But I managed to get us all there safely, with only 1 pitstop for coffee (for me) and to pee (for all 3 of us).  And once we got there, and got the car unloaded, we went straight to the beach.  And at this moment right here, I felt my entire body relax and I realized why we came early.  Because it was awesome (even with the thunderstorm that hit about 20 mins after I took this pic of the kids in the sand -- thankfully we had just gotten back in the car before the skies opened up).  The kids thought it was great, thunder/lightening and heavy rain and all!

The next day, after a run and bike ride for the kiddos, we hit the beach again!  This time Eddy's cousin Autumn and her family, who were staying near by, met us.  Always fun for the kids to have friends.  

BJ, Camden, Ryan, Autumn, Kaitlyn, Eddy, and Kensie

We bought a boat this year, to add to the fun -- who's steering that thing? 

Some more pictures of our beach days...

Kaitlyn ended up topless at the end of our beach day, and buried in sand thanks to Cristen.  Truly a sign of a great day on the beach!

this was almost 6 pm -- the kids did NOT want to leave!  Such a great day. 

On the 4th of July, we woke up to cloudy skies and constant threats of rain.  No beach for us, which was fine.  We took a short hike to the top of Eagle Rock, something we've been meaning to get around to doing, and the view of the lake was awesome.  We were blessed with the most amazing lightening show!  We were not alone on the top of this rock, and despite the lightening, we felt quite safe up there, promise.  It will be a great memory for a long time to come.

look at those storm clouds!  Normally you see mountains over there. 

Cristen managed to capture this with her trusty little iPhone!  Awesome!!!

after the lightening show, we wandered around Tahoe City for lunch, hit up the playground, and just enjoyed people watching with no real agenda.  It turned out to be a great day. 

we BBQ'd back at the cabin that evening

 Sunday Cristen had to head home on the early side, to try and beat traffic, and the 4 of us stayed one more day.  So we did our traditional bike ride along the path near South Lake, picnic lunch, and of course a stop for ice cream at Camp Richardson.  Ry has become so easy to bike with, he pedals with all his heart yet knows the rules of the path and we don't fear for his life any more.  Kaitlyn on the other hand, did half of the ride kicking and screaming in the seat on the back of my bike (because we knew there was no way she'd go anywhere fast, nor last 6 miles) and the other half on her Strider -- slow, willy nilly all over the place in front of other riders.  That girl gave me a heart attack about 5 times that day.  But she loved it!

we made it to our turn around spot, the bridge

Kaitlyn chose strawberry, because it was pink of course, but we all decided it was the best flavor of all of ours.  Maybe she's on to something!

sharing

 Our last morning up there, the quietest of them all as far as crowds, was the most beautiful.  So we took one more walk/kids rode bikes, and just enjoyed the beauty of this place for a few more minutes before coming back to reality.