San Francisco & Lake Tahoe Vacation

It seemed like vacation took FOREVER to get here, but as usual once it was here, it went way too fast. We have been sitting here going through photos of our trip over the past two weeks and wishing we were still there - our biggest worry would be what our next meal would be :)

We packed up the car and was able to give Kingston the back seat to himself so he could lay down during our long 9+ hour drive to San Francisco. The ride wasn't too shabby and I think what helped is that we were excited to just get there and relax. Boy were we in for a treat! Once we got there it wasn't hard to figure out how confused and probably scared Kingston was. He immediately noted his scent in our hotel room...several times. I can't tell you how many times I was down on my hands and knees scrubbing the carpet. Eventually he kinda got it. He realized it was a LONG walk to go potty so he did great at holding it after awhile. The morning of my friend Alicia's wedding Jeremiah and I were all set to leave and as soon as we shut the door Kingston started barking. It was a little bit stressful! I ended up going to the wedding ceremony and ate and as I finished up Jeremiah and Kingston arrived. Luckily there was a little park area for him to walk around so Jeremiah and I switched spots and I took the dog so he could grab some food and visit with friends. It all worked out just fine in the end! What a beautiful city San Francisco is - it's just too bad that we didn't get to see much of it. We promised each other that we would make a long weekend of it one day (minus the dog!). Here's a few photos of the wedding...






It was bittersweet leaving San Francisco. On the one hand, we were really bummed that we didn't get to see much of our friends or explore the city, but on the other hand we were thankful to go to a place where Kingston could run around and feel more comfortable. The drive to Lake Tahoe was cake compared to our drive to San Francisco! It took about 3 1/2 hours to get to our cabin. Jeremiah was SO excited as soon as we started seeing real trees and real water! He was snapping pictures like they were going out of style. I was cracking up! Once we found our destination we were just ecstatic as we pulled into the cabin cul-de-sac. The cabins were so cute! Here's a photo of them. Ours is the one with the blue car in front of it:



The first day or two were were lazy bums. I think the most we did was do our grocery shopping for the week! The first big thing we did was go into town to do some shopping. It was a town called Heavenly which was just minutes from our cabin and they had some really great shops! We found some goodies for ourselves along the way and then we spotted the gondola. Jeremiah suggested going on it and I am thinking "well, i guess we can but it might not be that fun". It was a blast, and I am SO glad that we took the time to go on it! We took SO many pictures, but here are a few for ya!






Of course we had a couple of beach days too! I wasn't really sure what to expect with Kingston since it was his first time at a lake. He was BEYOND excited! I made the mistake a couple of times letting him off his leash and he booked it down the beach - I was so worried he wouldn't come back. He was so curious about other people but he did play with some dogs and I could tell he was having a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to going to the beach a lot more with him!




I thing one of my most memorable days of our vacation was when we went on the Tahoe Queen which was a sunset dinner cruise! It was so awesome. We were both excited to get on a boat and see the lake from a different perspective. As we got on the boat we were seated and ate a yummy dinner and had dessert. We were actually in a hurry to get through dinner because we wanted to get up to the decks to see the view and take a lot of photos before it got dark. We took juuuuust a few. Be prepared for a photoshoot...

















Phew! That was a lot...we took most of our photos that day. So we ended up driving up to Reno to see our friends Jared and Christy and their two little girls on Jeremiah's birthday. They were sweet enough to make dinner for us and Christy even made cupcakes for Jeremiah! We had such a great time catching up. On our last day we visited an art fair and we found some really great photos for our house. I'll be excited to post them up for you all to see soon! We decided that our last activity would be to go mini golfing which I hadn't done probably since I was in middle or high school! We had such a blast. We played for about 2 or 3 hours and 60 some holes. It was so much fun!






The drive from Tahoe to Vegas was pretty rough. I think we passed through 2 cities in the 9 hours of driving. There really wasn't much to look at, but it was SO nice to be next to each other and reflect on everything that we had just experienced. This vacation was SO important to me because our schedules conflict so much that we are lucky to have just a couple of hours together a day. So to be together non stop for a week was complete bliss to me. My wheels are already turning to plan on a getaway in the spring. I'd love to go somewhere else we've never been, but as long as we're together that's what really matters.

That's all for now! I've been really busy this past weekend putting up art and photos on the walls and am planning to begin painting our bathrooms this weekend. I'm so happy to see the house have a homey feel. I will be sure to post pictures of our progress next time!