Berlin, Germany!

Grandpa, Marissa, and Grandma

The suitcase can only way 44 pounds!!! Yikes!!!

On Friday, June 30th, we took Marissa here!! The San Francisco International Airport. (It is a pretty sweet airport!!) She boarded her plane (the new Airbus 380 on Lufthansa!) and left for BERLIN, GERMANY!

No, she isn't going merely to watch the women's world cup... She's actually on a Study Abroad with BYU. She will be there for 8 weeks! We hope to see lots of cools pictures and she hopes to become much more fluent in German! A very cool opportunity indeed.

Leaving the American River

The river was rising fast and we needed to head to our next destination... Andrea celebrates that we get to go to Taco Bell :)

The gold panners! Note Riley's full pan! He will search for gold in this 'found' dirt.

Riley kept 'what he found' :) We did find some gold flakes. Panning for gold is quite fun. I think we could have stayed and done it for hours! A nice float down the American River would have been fun too!

He didn't find a big nugget, but I think he had fun.

bored girls...

the girls did get some short turns with the panning... I think they had more fun with the camera :) Enjoy!

vacationing with these girls is fun!

GOLD!

Great photo by Andrea!

Riley.... searching, digging, trying to find his fortune!

Jim is sure he's going to find a big nugget!

Good thing I learned how to capture the gold flakes at our 49'er day at school :D

"in the jungle... the mighty jungle..." ;)

A day like James Marshall

Living in the Golden State of California, we have many opportunities to visit historic sites. Since Jim was unable to find any gold at Lake Tahoe :( When I realized that we would be driving right by the actual spot where gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, we couldn't resist stopping! It was worth it! We loved the California Golden Poppies too!

After a quick tour of the museum we were off to find our fortune along the banks of the American River just a few feet north of where James Marshall discovered gold in 1848! *Can you tell I'm a teacher??

I don't think we have any pictures of Jim and Riley where they are not diligently searching for gold.

The girls and I entertained ourselves while we waited for a turn with the gold pans. We waited and waited.... ;)

Looking upstream on the American River!

South Lake Tahoe- Day 2

On Day 2 we hiked to Vikingsholm Castle, which is really just a very cool house built by a super rich lady a long time ago. I had no idea why a family would give up this exclusive spot on Lake Tahoe located at the end of Emerald Cove. I would love to spend my summers living here for sure!!

It was a 1 mile hike down to the castle. There were many little waterfalls from the spring run-off on our way. I can never get enough of the fresh, clean, pine-smelling air!

We went on the Castle tour-- which made me want to live there even more! Each room has it's own bathroom and a great view of the lake.

It was built in 1929 and is styled after buildings in Scandinavia. Very cool indeed.

The 1 mile back UP to the car wasn't quite as fun as the walk DOWN. Funny that it never seems very steep when you walk down :)

Anyway, we made it. Marissa had thrown out her back the day before (you know-- pulling Andrea out of the sand they had buried themselves in and then rescuing a drowning ladybug!) But somehow she was able to make this hike with us. It was a great day!

I have NO idea why these pictures uploaded so weirdly on this post. But, I'm too lazy to figure it out. ;)

South Lake Tahoe- Day 1

We spent a lovely few days in SOUTH LAKE TAHOE! Our first day was spent at this lovely beach. Jim was just sure that he would find GOLD there..... (he didn't.)

Marissa and Andrea decided to live the short life. Where did their legs go??? Isn't Riley tall???

Dr. Thurman (our orthodontist) made his appearance on this beach :) Isn't Andrea cool?

The best part of vacation is all the great breakfasts that Jim cooks for us. Day 1 was fresh blueberry pancakes. Mmmm- Delish!!