reno trip

We had a great week off.

Friday July 1st- The girls (jo and lex) attended their last day of VBS in the morning, meanwhile I took my car in for an oil change and found out it needed breaks and a water pump! Glad I took it into a good shop instead of just a ten minute oil change.  Dave came home from work around 2pm, around the same time I got my car back. Dave had stopped on the way home to get me some biker shorts so we could ride bikes in Reno/Tahoe.

We hit the road around 3pm, a couple of hours later than planned and made it to visilia by 10. The kids were all pumped and hyper so they didn't settle down until midnight. That was not fun!

Sat morning we took the kids to swim at the hotel pool and stopped at the store for some snacks and then hit the road for Sequoia.  there was some traffic just past three rivers so we pulled over and let dave ride his bike for about 45 minutes. Then we got back on the road and there was still traffic so we decided to skip sequoia. It would have taken us all day to get there and see everything and on the 4th of july weekend it just seemed like a bad idea!  So we headed for Reno, arriving around 8pm. The kids were hyper, yet again, so I went out for a bike ride while they played with grandma and grandma for an hour before bed.

Sunday - church, park

Monday - 4th of July - we went to Scott Lake up near Tahoe. It was perfect. We drove our cars on a dirt trail about 4 miles off the main road. The lake was completely secluded and not crowded. Great way to spend the 4th. We had lunch - hot dogs on a small grill. We went on a fun hike up a waterfall.  Dave and his dad rode bikes about 30-45 min from the lake down to a parking lot where Linda and I met them with the cars. Dan took a couple of really hard falls off the bike!

Tues - We went back up to Tahoe. Dave and I went biking while Dan and Linda took the kids to the beach. The bike ride was amazing. It was 17 miles total. The first 4 miles I had to walk because it was  uphill.  Then we hit about 2 miles downhill past Marquette lake where we passed into the flume trail. The flume trail is gorgeous and sits right near the top of the mountains overlooking Tahoe. all along the trail you can see the lake. It's amazing. That trail goes about 7 miles. Then you get a straight downhill for the last 3 miles!  Once we hit Lake Tahoe at the bottom we rode about 3 more miles to find the kids.  It was the longest ride I have ever done. It was very fun.  Would love to do it again.    We didn't get home until around 6pm so we took everyone out to dinner at Red Robin.

Wed - Dave went out early and rode 22 miles up in Tahoe. It was a very hard and fun ride for him. Around 11am I took the kids to the water park in Sparks. Dave met us there about 1pm. Jojo had fun going on some of the rides and then got pretty cold. She rested for a couple of hours and then later in the afternoon did some more slides. Her favorite was the Tortuga on the double tube. we did it over and over and over again! All the kids had a good time.  Clare and Lexey also did the Tortuga a dozen times on a double tube.

Th -July 7th!! JOJO's 5th birthday! In the morning we said happy birthday to jojo. I asked her if she wanted to open a present in the morning and she said no, she wanted to wait until after we sang happy birthday to her! Dave asked her how  it feels to be a five year old and she said she isn't five until we sing to her!  She is so cute!

 We went river rafting along the trukee river with Dan Linda and Mark and two of his kids. It started around 11 and we finished around 2pm. We ate lunch near the river and then drove over to up above doner lake for some rock climbing. Calvin did a great job repelling down, I took a turn repelling down as well (after a good cry ... I was scared out of my mind)! Then Dave set up the ropes for climbing so the kids all took a few turns going up and down the rock. Lexey went first and scaled all the way to the top so quick! She got up there and we told her she needed to repel back down. She looked down and said, "no" so she hiked around the back of the rock.   Jojo, on her first time up went a little too far and got stuck so Uncle Mark had to climb up and help her get down. After that she just went up and down five feet so she could get some practice with the technique.  The kids had a good time. We ended up staying at the rock climbing for a few hours, much longer than planned os it delayed our dinner, once again!   On the drive home we picked up happy meals for the kids.  When we got home we sang happy birthday to Jo and let her open presents. The kids played for a bit and then went to bed around 8:30-9. At 9 Dave and I went to the casinos to look for food but nothing looked that great. We stopped by a well known little hole in the wall down a dark alley called "the nugget" but it was so disgusting inside we couldn't stay and eat. We ended up going to BJ's for dinner super late! 10:15pm. We were both exhausted but you've got to take advantage of the babysitters when you've got 'em!

Fri we left about 9:30 to drive home. The drive was uneventful. We got home about 8:30pm. Meyer was very happy to see us.