Shreddin' Some Gnar

When I first knew that we were going to move to Lake Tahoe I was curious if the waves ever kicked up enough to surf.  Sure enough I found a website http://www.surf6200.com/nv/ that is dedicate do people who surf Lake Tahoe (it has not been updated in 2 years).  If you look at some of the videos you cannot tell the difference between the Lake and San Diego.  The conditions must be 20-25 mph winds with 25 mph gusts.  Most of those storms are in the fall and spring and I do not imagine getting in the freezing water during those times.  Today we had 10 mph winds with 15 mph gusts.  I did break out the body board.  It was not ocean like, but was big enough to just give you a taste of what it is like.

Living here is great, but it has made me covetous – If it is this good here, how great would it be in Hawaii or Oregon Coast (Can’t live in California because of their messed up financial situation)?
The best part about body boarding Lake Tahoe is when you take a big gulp, it actually tastes really good!

Golf Balls

by Erik

Since our move into this golf course community Soren has become obsessed with golf.  In his reasoning, since he is good at it on Wii, he is good at it in real life.  When we go fish on the golf course lakes Soren wants to spend most of his time looking for golf tees and if he can find a ball, he is in heaven.  I noticed on a run this week that since there was a low snow pack one lake in particular was becoming dry.  Even better about this lake was that the green is located just beyond the lake.  This has exposed golf balls that have been under the water for few years.  You can see them out there like Easter eggs.

I decided to take Soren and Svea to look for the balls last night knowing they would have a blast.  I was not planning on getting in, but figured I would hold a bag and let them collect the balls. 

Things were going great until Svea walked a little to far out into some of the soft mud.  She sunk into the mud up to her knees and then fell over and her arms sunk upto her elbows.  She was screaming and crying.  I still did not want to get in, So I sent Soren to help her.  He made it within three feet of Svea and he sunk upto his knees.  Now I was forced to get in.  I tried to walk light, but sunk in as well.  The mud sucked my shoes off, but I was able to get the kids out.  I went back in and retrieved every one’s shoes.  Now we were all in so I helped collect golf balls.  The kids were loving it – muddy and looking for golf balls.  Every time you stepped in the mud there was 3 or 4 under your feet (like looking for quohogs at the salt marsh in Cape Cod – for family).

We washed off in the golf course sprinklers, went home and cleaned the balls.  Grand Total – 128 golf balls.  Ashley asked “What are you going to do with 128 golf balls?”  Talk about someone who misses the point – who cares what we are going to do with them?  The point is “WE HAVE 128 GOLF BALLS.”  The kids were ecstatic and we can chalk up another new experience.  Soren has already been asking to go get more – and we could, I only had one bag.

 

 

Peace, Quiet and Fish!

Erik’s Post

My old boss from Flood Control in Phoenix, Amir Motamedi, was in Tahoe vacationing this week. He took time out of his vacation schedule to have lunch with me and check out my new habitat.  Amir was the person who basically gave me the big break I needed out of school.  He hired me as a hydrologist even though I had no experience and was young.  Amir was also very patient with my limited knowledge, explained things so they were easy to understand and always put the pressure of deadlines on himself and always stood up for staff.  It was nice to spend an afternoon with him catching up.  Amir has taken me to lunch numerous times over the years.  It was nice to be in a position to take him out and treat him.  It was that first job that eventually lead to the job I have today and I am forever grateful to Amir for giving me that first chance (I repaid him by only staying for 2.5 years).  Minden was settled by Basque Sheppard's and the area still has Basque roots.  One of the famous restaurants is  JT Basque Bar and now I finally had the opportunity to try it.

I had the steak sandwich.  It was probably the best sandwich I have ever had.  When I cooked at the Oaks (a casual eatery in beautiful Ogden Canyon) we made steak sandwiches. We diced steak and mixed in mushrooms, green peppers, onions, and cheese.  This sandwich was a large steak on two pieces of bread.  I raved about it all day.  Best lunch in a long time an I will be back (still getting used to the slot machines in the lobby!).

In Phoenix for 5 years every Wednesday was scouts.  I was gone from my family from 6:45-9:00.  Well – I don’t have any calling right now (and judging from the 21 Elders at church on Sunday (after you take away the two that were in nursery and one in each primary class and the 11 that were in the YM program) not to mention the mammoth high priests group, it might be through the summer until I do have a calling.  I now take Thursdays and go fly fishing after work.  It takes 1/2 hour to get someplace worth fishing then another 30 minutes to 1 hour hike and I get in about 2 hours of fishing.  I work with a guy who loves to hike, but hates to fish so he tells me of all these streams he finds and then I go and fish them.

I found maybe the most peaceful place on the planet.  The hike is a killer – straight up, but then it opens into a beautiful alpine meadow.  You would not expect fish to be in the stream – its so small but it was full (the pics are poor quality because all I had was my phone, but you get the idea).

 

Every third cast was a fish.  Not the stocked rainbow trout you usually find, but colorful native brook trout.  Brook trout are by far the smallest trout (2 inches to 6 inches), but watching them take the fly and bringing them in was fun.  I seriously caught about 30 and released them all.  None had taken the hook too far, so they are all still happy in their stream.  The one on the end was the big fish of the day.  I did not see one other person.  It was me, the stream, fish, squirrels and chipmunks and a bunch of colorful song birds.  Wonderful!

I really felt as I hiked back to the car – that is how the day is supposed to go.  Delicious lunch with a good friend, productive day at work, and time be in a peaceful location to think and decompress.  What a good day.

July 4, 2012

Liv hit the 6 month mark this week.  It’s crazy how fast she is growing up.  We tried some rice cereal.  She wasn’t into it.  We’ll wait a little longer and try again.  She still doesn’t have any teeth, my latest teether.
Last Friday we drove out to the Lake after Erik got off work and had picnic sushi at Diver’s Cove.  It was a beautiful night and a great way to start the weekend.
 
Svea is our water baby, even though the water was freezing.
Even in my spring suit it was COLD!

Erik snorkeled.  He’s hard core.  I’m serious when I say it was COLD.

Liv ate sand.  Blech.

Svea’s hair has reached its lightest summer blonde, it is so cute!

Erik had to return to Phoenix to pick up our Sentra so he was gone all day on Saturday.  We may not be completely moved in but at least all of our stuff is here with us now.
Sunday afternoon we drove down to River Fork Ranch and walked what I think was the West Fork Trail along the Carson river.  The trail wasn’t very exciting but there were great views of Genoa and the Sierras.
For the 4th this year we ran around town shopping.  After a tiring day we decided to enjoy the fireworks at a high school in Carson City.  The kids had a blast (The baby not so much)!  See the kids wearing their “winter coats” in July?  Awesome.

The Move

Well, we made it!  I never want to move again, that was NOT my idea of fun.  Erik’s wild idea worked out and we are enjoying exploring our new home.

We made the long drive from Phoenix to Douglas County over two days.  I think it took about 15 hours including many stops made.  Traveling with kids (especially a baby) and a huge uhaul is not fast.  The drive was uneventful and the kids were amazingly good.  Soren rode with Erik in the massive truck and the girls rode with me in the Mazda5.  Erik and I were able to keep in touch with our prepaid cell phones which worked out perfectly.  I don’t know how we would have done it without them!

So… we left Phoenix on Wednesday, stayed in Hesperia, CA Wednesday night and continued on to Minden, NV on Thursday.  Friday’s task was finding a house.  No big deal, right?  HA!  I still can’t believe our crazy plan worked out.  We looked at several rentals that were move in ready and in our price range.  Nothing was really exciting me although there were several options that were “ok”.  Most of the options were run down or smelled funny (pet pee, cigarettes, etc).  We decided to go look at a property in Genoa even though the rental specified NO PETS.  Erik had driven over to Genoa when he interviewed up here in April and thought it was beautiful, but we didn’t think there was any way that we would be able to live here.  We knew it was going to be good when we saw this a few houses down from the available rental:

After gawking at the deer who was totally unafraid of us, we pulled up to the house:

I Fell In Love.  But I tried to hold down my excitement.  After all, “NO PETS” and I didn’t want to be let down.  The inside was beautiful and the perfect size for us for now.  We headed back towards Minden, me sighing with disappointment.  If only another house was available in that area that allowed pets!  Well, Erik gave the property manager a call to see if the owner would allow us our kitty cat and we were warned that this owner did not give such waivers.  We decided to eat lunch and then head out to another part of Carson Valley to check out a few more properties.  While we were eating I got a call from the property manager.  The owner had said YES to our pet request.  The house was ours if we wanted it!  After some discussion we checked out a couple more homes but we were hooked and we signed on our new place Friday afternoon.  I felt (and still feel) so lucky that we were able to make an obvious right choice on where to live.  We didn’t have much time and once again things worked out for us (hmmm… seems to be the theme of this move).

Saturday night saw us with an empty uhaul and a house full of boxes.  We headed to church Sunday to meet our new ward.  For a large and growing ward we were surprisingly warmly welcomed.  I got the scoop on the new ward playgroup and tried to remember many new names.  Soren was excited to join his class in Primary.  Svea was a little more apprehensive about her nursery class but she didn’t cry or need us to stay with her.  Sunday afternoon we took a drive over the mountains to check out (finally) The Lake.

Tahoe is so beautiful.  As we crested the pine top mountains I began to see glimpses of a startlingly blue jewel through the trees.  It is so much bigger and even more stunning than I imagined.  We were able to stop and dip our toes in the very cold water.

Even Liv wanted to touch the cold water and sand.

Later on in our first week in the new place, Erik took the kids fishing in one of the lakes in our golf course.  Soren caught two fish the first night, although his luck hasn’t been as good since.

Playgroup here meets at a local park on Mondays, then Wednesdays are playgroup at Sand Harbor in Lake Tahoe.  A-MAZE-ING!  The kids and I weren’t able to find our new friends but we had a fun time at the beach anyway.  The water was amazingly clear and cold.  Soren dipped his toes, Svea went in up to her neck.  Liv enjoyed the shade and ate lots of sand.  Some of these pics aren’t great but they show the beautiful setting and clear water.

Liv is getting SO big!  She grew up while I was busy packing and unpacking and she is really becoming a little person now.

Soren’s toys floated away.  He sent his little sis in to get them because he was too cold.

Such a peaceful place.

We enjoyed the lake so much we went back again on Friday.  Got to get our Lake time in before summer is over!

Liv LOVES the sand.  She’s constantly rolling herself to the edge of the towel to grab handfulls and eat it.  Yuck.

Svea is a beach bum

Spitting with joy

It was a little cold for swimming on Saturday so we decided to take a hike on one of our local trails instead.  We found a used pack on Craigslist right down the road which was perfect for the baby.  The kids are little hikers, especially Soren who is a budding trail runner.  The trail was pretty and started in dusty pine covered hills and then paralleled a beautiful stream surrounded by greenery.

The kids favorite was the bridge that crossed the little stream.  The water was icy!

Sunday after church we were able to drive to Spooner Lake and we took a hike around the lake.  I feel like I am overdosing on pretty places!

Svea was tired of walking so she got to try out the pack for part of the hike. 

I’ve been so busy getting our new house set up I can’t believe I had enough time to see any of our new area yet!  We are almost all settled in with only a few boxes left to open.  Here’s a pic of our backyard view – can you spot the deer? 

Here it is again…

Svea and Chibi enjoying the yard:

Erik seems to be excited about his new job (so weird to be married to The County Engineer).  He is working on developing the new hobbies that have become possible here.  Although we have transplanted ourselves into alien terrain, I’m happy and excited that we’ve made this change and that feeling grows the more time passes.