more Tahoe pictures....

Here's some more of the creek....

Dad and Travis REALLY enjoyed the creek!

Go Mom!

Bear in the bulrushes...

Need I add that these girls hiked back dripping wet?

Rod got his annual Northstar biking in with his friend Todd....

Grammy took Abby for morning walks!

Hercules...wait, I mean Dad

A pensive Lizzie on Rock Island.

Lizzie had that dirt smudge above her eye for like 4 days. Really, what was the point in wiping it off?

Mom and girls on Rock Island....

I like this biking shot of Dad!

Trav-man max-relaxin'...

Sunburned cheeks and nose from Bliss, along with some great camping dirt!

Rod and I finagled a kayaking trip...without kiddos. It was beautiful and peaceful!

Tahoe

I hope these pictures don't make any of my sisters cry...but Tahoe was, as usual, totally awesome. We missed having everyone there! But we did the best we could to enjoy ourselves. We went to the dock, blissed out at Bliss, ate market sandwiches (I had 3! one for each of my missing sisters!!), hiked and enjoyed the beautiful outdoors. On the way home we meandered through some small towns south of Carson City that I decided we're going to live in. We're just too far from Tahoe!

We dutch-ovened a lot. It was a little experimental, some meals turned out better than others, but it was a lot of fun! And super easy clean-up!

On the way home, we didn't make it far before we stopped...at Emerald Bay. It was beautiful. Next year, we want to go to the Viking House and do the tour. I remember only doing that once a long time ago.

Our old camera is now the girls' camera...and it brings much joy!

Lizzie taking shots of her camping friend, Megan.

The camping group. A family from SLC were our neighbors for a few days. They had 3 kids, ages 6, 4, and 2. The girls had a blast with them! This is them, plus one more kid from another camp, on "Rock Island", a super cool group of rocks in the center of the loop. By the way, this was the best loop ever. Especially for little kids and keeping an eye on them while allowing them to feel independent and free. It was great!

Our photogenic Caitlin. She loves posing for the camera!

Abby found a stump she could explore...

Abby and her BFF, dad.

Love this shot Rod took.

This driftwood is bigger than Lizzie. But why should that stop her?

This is on the day we weren't swimming, but the girls "just wanted to get their feet wet".....

T.C. and Caitlin

Exploring the creek was probably one of my favorite activites. It's a super fun creek! It was a lot of fun to watch the girls scramble on the tree trunks and rocks up the creek. I don't remember going here very often when we were growing up. Why didn't we?

Let the countdown to next summer's trip begin!

My Garden Bounty!

It's been a great year for strawberries! I'm getting lots, thanks to Grandpa Gubler for giving me the plants. It all looked so pretty I had to take a picture.

Terrific Tahoe!

Ah! Perfect weather

Mike enjoyed babysitting!

Grandma Gubler enjoyed the beach.

Baby found in the bullrushes.

Mermaids on the beach!

ThE fOuRtH

We hung out in our front yard and watched fireworks our next door neighbors were setting off. They have four older boys, so I'm sure the 4th is a favorite holiday over there. We also enjoyed a delicious homemade apple pie my friend Sarah brought over. It was low-key, relaxing, and fun! The girls enjoyed doing sparklers, pop-it's, and confetti thingys. Here's some pics Rod took:

Rod experimenting with shutter speed here

Check out those black feet! That's just from toddl-ing around the front yard. Yup...that's definately my child.

Love this picture!

Crafty, crafty

Some crafty stuff I've been up to lately: I've had this chair in the works for a long time; I bought the fabric a year ago to reupholster it. Seriously, an entire year this has been on my mind. It was just so daunting, but once I tackled it, it only took 5 days to do. Now it's comfy and looks good, before it was stained and dirt streaked to the point of grossness!!!

This ottoman actually goes with the chair I just reupholstered, but there's no room in our living room for it. So I recovered it with outdoor fabric and it's a side table/ottoman/coffee table for outside. (side note: those are my tomato plants in the background; I'm harvesting yummy tomatoes, some are from seeds mom brought me from Italy a few years ago. They are good!!)


I hope Megan doesn't check this blog before I take these to her next week, but these are for her baby boy! She's due in a few weeks, and while we're in Tahoe I'll swing these by for her. I made these booties and hat from a super cute Amy Butler pattern. She has a book out that a friend told me about; I got it from the library and pretty much want to make every single thing out of it...but these have satisfied me for now.

It's sad you can hardly see the lining- that's the super cute part of these!!!