It has been a crazy couple of months and I’m glad to be slowing down just a tad. With a million and one projects all converging on me at once, my baby seester’s wedding and all the festivities that come with it, I haven’t had a moment to stop and catch my breath. Of course this means I haven’t had as much time to enjoy summer and my babies like I planned to. Since this my favorite time of year, I plan to soak up every last second of it before we start the schoolyear and are reduced to weekends and weekday evenings. Really we don’t even get that since there are sports to be played and homework to be done.
While I can’t exactly head out on an extended vacation from now until then, I can make an effort to set aside time to simply wander and be free. To play in the sand and let the waves roll over my toes while my gorgeous boys have grand adventures in the sun. And of course I can enjoy the memories we make, for years to come. I’m feeling like it’s so very important that we make sure we have many more adventures like this, while the boys are still young. No schedules to keep or tasks to be done, just pure unadulturated fun.
We had the fabulous opportunity to do exactly that… to wander and find new places to explore with no precise plan and an adventurous spirit. It was such a lovely day for all of us, and since it happened to be the day after my sister got married we were fresh on the heels of exhaustion and in much need of relaxation. My cousin ‘Loo Hoo’ was in town from Florida, for the occasion, so we were chomping at the bit to get out of town for the day and leave our worries and our stresses behind.
We actually started out with a fairly precise plan only to find that we weren’t alone in our ideas and quickly needed to find another fun adventurous alternative for the day. If this hadn’t happened, we never would have stumbled upon one of Northern California’s greatest beachy treasures, as far as I am concerned. Living just outside the greater Sacramento area we are fortunate to be near the ocean in one direction as well as the mountains in the other. But our mountains just happen to rest alongside the gorgeous Lake Tahoe with fabulous beaches and beachfront marinas, quite often to be found with dining and roving waiters serving drinks.
It’s not the Mediterranean, but it’s certainly one of our greatest little gems out here in the west.
There are dozens of beaches that line the lake’s edge, but one of our favorite’s, thanks to this little segue of ours that day, is definitely Round Hill Pines. I never even knew this place existed and I suppose it’s not surprising since it only recently reopened after sitting vacant for a very long time. Formerly a fabulous Resort and Marina in it’s heyday, it is currently under renovation and should be ready take on it’s former role as an adorable lakefront series of cabins, complete with tennis court and swimming pool, sometime in the very near future I hope! It was so very perfect for our little family with our wide range of ages and had a ton of fun for the older kids too (me of course). You can rent kayaks, paddle boards, jet skis, and large floatation devices that seat many people at once! I couldn’t even guess what those are actually called, but I’m sure you know what I am referring to.
After our day at the beach we headed into town, which had live music happening in multiple spots, and we had amazing food at one of our favorite places to eat. Just perfection…
Have any of you had the chance to wander + be free? It was lovely to get to know my surroundings a bit better, there is such beauty here that I don’t often take advantage of.
