Our Fam

Sorry it has been a few weeks since my last post. I went on vacation and didn't have access to a computer. Then when I did get home my computer or internet or both were having issues and I couldn't do anything. So now I will write about my vaction. On the Fourth of July, my parents, sister, and younger brother and his family arrived at my house. We had some food and fire works. Nothing real big. It was a nice Fourth of July. No one was hurt during the lighting of the fire works so that was a plus. Mackenzie like the lights but hated the ones that made noise. On the Sunday following the Fourth we all headed out to Lake Tahoe for a week. Well all of us but Brian. He had to stay home and attend his classes. Well we made it Mackenzie did very well, as long as there was a movie playing she was as happy as could be. I must thank my mother-in-law for loaning me her portable DVD player. Without it I don't think Mackenzie would have enjoyed the 10 hour trip. Anyway we arrived on sunday evening and got settled in. On Monday we relaxed swam went shopping for food and browsed the shops in the area.

On tues we went to the hotels private beach. The water was cold but it was one of the clearest days we had. There are alot of fires burning in the area near Lake Tahoe so depending on the direction the wind was blowing the air would be clear or smokey. Mackenzie enjoyed picking up rocks and sand and throwing it into the water. She did walk in waist deep before she decided it was to cold to go any farther. After everyone had had enough of the water we decided to eat the lunch that we had brought along. Mackenzie had grandpa take her to go pet the life guards dog. Then she came back and played in the sand. She really loved putting the sand on her legs and inbetween her toes. She would then yell "OH. NO." and would then shake her legs to get the sand off and clean out her toes. She would then laugh and put more sand on her legs and inbetween her toes. She had a blast.

The next day, Wed., we went for a bike ride. We rented bikes and a trailer for the two little ones. Lucky for me my brother was nice enough to pull Mackenzie and his daughter Eraleigh. When we arrived at the bike rental place my mom was very disappointed to find that all their tandem bikes were all ready rented out. She was really upset saying that she couldn't ride by herself. She would crash, she would be left far behind, she was not going to be able to enjoy the ride. In the end she did just fine and had no problem keeping up. I mean it's not like any of the rest of us spent hours on a bike. In fact it had been several years for me, Michelle and Leslie scince we had been on bikes. Once we got going Mackenzie fell asleep. It was in the middle of her nap time. After we were done with the bike ride we went to a little General Store and bought sandwiches from the deli. That evening all but Eric and Leslie stayed at the time share and rested. (It was there four year anniversary). On Thursday we decided to do some walking and hiking around a few historical sites. It would have been neat to see what some of those places looked liked back in the old days. They didn't want you touching anything of course but at one place they had this little chair you could sit your kids in. It is actually set up so that you can take their picture with Somkey the Bear (that is his paw and pant leg on the right side of the picture) but I thought he was kinda ugly so I just took a picture of Mackenzie. It is one of the few pictures I was able to capture a smile in. She loves having her picture taken but she usually wont smile until the flash has gone off. Then by the time my camera is ready to take another picture she has stopped smiling. I think she is really cute in this one. She didn't want to get out of the chair. In fact she wanted to use it to scale the stone fireplace on the otherside. Following will be some picture from that day. This is the day I took the most pictures on so I will put just small captioning next to the pictures.

Mackenzie thought she was such a big girl to help push her cousin around.

To keep Mackenzie happy during one of the longer hikes she was given a chocolate suker to keep her happy. Unforunatly her diperwipes were left at the top of the hike.

On Friday we decided to visit the Navada Beach State Park. Mackenzie had fun playing in the water. She even sat there shivering and wouldn't get out of the water when I asked her too. Finally when I thought that fingers and toes were going to need to be amputated they were so purple she climbed out of the water. She then had fun lying on the sand and running it through her fingers and toes and they warmed back up.

On Sat. our last day there, we went for another hike. It was just a small one but it was really pretty. And one more cute picture of Mackenzie. Well that was our vacation. It was nice and relaxing. We had alot of fun but were very happy to come home and see Daddy again.