A highlight of our summer tour of the USA was definitely our third week spent in Lake Tahoe with everyone from my family celebrating my parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary. Chad and I dreamt this plan up a couple years back and hoped we could pull it off combining so many busy schedules and working around the sometimes fickle health of grandparents. In a combination of planes and cars we all descended on Lake Tahoe. We flew from Salt Lake and happened to meet Chad and family who were on the same connecting flight into Reno! Lake Tahoe seemed to be the obvious choice for where to mark this occasion having been such an important place where so many wonderful memories were created in our family. I hadn't been back in 30 years and neither had my parents, so it was a real trip down memory lane. Memories of countless vacations spent here came flooding back, and as it often happens things seemed very different in my minds from the perspective of a child than they were in reality in my middle-aged perspective. Yet at the same time, some things were exactly the same, remaining completely unchanged all these years on. We rented a big house in Tahoe City that housed Chad's family, mine and mom and dad with relative comfort. It was a week of celebrating, reminiscing on old memories and creating new memories that we shall not soon forget. I'm so grateful for my family.
Lake Tahoe, simply no place like it anywhere in the world!
Mom and Dad's 50th Anniversary Party! This was a real highlight of the week. We ordered a special cake, everyone made/signed cards and we had a custom cushion created marking all the special dates in their 50 years of marriage.
Just missing Tanner.
We had a lot of fun hanging out in the cabin. We played lots of games, had some delicious homemade meals, got into some lively discussions and even read some books.
When I was in California I dug up a bunch of old slides and Chad managed to locate an old projector which I picked up in Utah. And with that we had hours and hours of old photos to pour over. We spent the better part of two evenings going through the old slides (thanks to Brooke for being the slide master!). Some of them I'm not sure anyone had ever seen. It was really neat to take such a walk down memory lane, a perfect thing to do to celebrate their 50 years and our family.
We let mom and dad have some quiet time in the cabin and spent several afternoons playing at the beach. We had a lot of fun swimming, building sand castles, playing ball games and enjoying some glorious weather.
On another afternoon we all went on a hike up to Eagle Lake near Emerald Bay
A sort of polar bear plunge! Trevon earned £20 on a dare with this dunk!
No trip to Lake Tahoe would be complete without a round of mini-golf at Kings Beach Miniature Golf. This place, made almost entirely out of handmade wooden props, was old fashioned when we played there as kids in the 80's. And what's amazing is that not a thing has changed. Certainly things have been repainted, etc., but everything was essentially as it was 30-40 years ago. And with that "62 Years" sign up, seems as if it'll keep on going, which is just so lovely. It truly was a blast from the past being back here again. We spent so many summer evenings here as kids.
A peek at Burnt Cedar Beach, where we spent dawn until dusk every day during the summers. So many wonderful memories here.
And our old cabin at 564 Tyner Way. The floodgates were overwhelmed with countless memories of our time here during the 10 years we owned it. So many vacations spent here both in the winter and summer months. It was a bit emotional for me to be back in this place. I will always feel such happiness when thinking of of time here. What I wouldn't do to go inside. The outside definitely needs a bit of attention, and has me wondering if the inside hasn't changed much since we were there.
On one of our final days we took my parents down to Emerald Bay. It's always been a favourite overlook. Truly one of the prettiest sections of Lake Tahoe. I was so glad my parents could see it again.
What shopping for 14 looks like.
We took mom and dad out for a lovely meal at a nice restaurant right on the lake as one of our final celebrations of their 50th. It was a perfect evening.
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