Reason for my Absence

Hey fellow bloggers! Sorry for my absence this week, but there was good reason. The Kroese Family went on vacation! I suppose I could have set up some posts while I was away, but I had a houseguest until the day before we left - a little busy around here! Anyhow, I thought I'd share a few pics of our trip (sorry, no artwork today, but hopefully tomorrow??) As you can tell we started our vacation on a drive to the San Francisco Bay area and took all that SF has to offer, like the Golden Gate Bridge.

And, of course, it was a must for my kids that we stop in at Ghiradelli's Chocolates - yum!!

And, naturally, we took a ride on the trolley cars. My husband and I have been to SF several times, but this was my kids' first visit. The street cars were a highlight for them!

It wouldn't be SF without a visit to the famous Lombard Street. We drove down it twice, and then walked it to take in the beauty of the landscaping.

Here's a close-up of one of the many beautiful hydrangea's on Lombard Street. Though they were on the tail end of their bloom, they were still magnificant!

We left the Bay Area on Thursday to head up/over to South Lake Tahoe, but on our way we just had to stop in Fairfield for a quick tour of the Jelly Belly Factory. This was fun for all of us! We dared the boys to try one of their "Bean Boozled" flavors, which they agreed to do if I paid them $1. Chad tried "barf", and Seth tried "canned dog food". It was hysterical watching their eyes water as they courageously ate their so-called candy! Chad recovered okay, but Seth's breath literally smelled like dog food the rest of the day! We all covered our nose every time he tried to talk to us. Boy did we laugh!!!

From Fairfield, we travelled through Sacramento and stopped in Old Town for a bite to eat. We decided on Fanny Ann's Saloon for burgers. We also took a few minutes to take in the Capital Building.

Our next destination was South Lake Tahoe for a couple of nights of camping. Talk about beautiful! Our campground was across the street from the beach, where we went each night to watch the sunset and see the stars. The weather was amazing, not too hot, not too cold, and the views were unbelievable! On Friday we drove over to Fallen Leaf Lake to take an easy hike up to a waterfall, which the kids thought was fun. There wasn't that much water, so they could climb all over the rocks - they had a ball!

So that's what I've been up to. Now I get to do laundry to try to get the campfire smells out of our clothes (that might take awhile). It was a nice get-a-way before school starts on Wednesday (uugghh!) We had such a nice summer, I'm sad it's behind us, but it's always good to get back into routine & schedules, too. Chat at you soon!