Lake Tahoe Wedding

We did have a wonderful time in Tahoe. The lake is indescribably beautiful. I am going to have Dick try to put some pictures of it and some of the shots he took after the wedding and during the party that was held the night before the wedding on when he gets home. Stacy (the bride) knows everyone in Lake Tahoe so it was very difficult for her to choose whom she would invite for the actual ceremony. She had to leave an awful lot of her friends out, so she invited them to a big party the night before. It was also a very nice celebration and the food for both the party and the wedding was incredible. They were both buffet style and I ate way too much, I'm afraid. They had prime rib Friday evening, with all kinds of salads and side dishes. Saturday evening was unbelievable. I have never in all my life of going to weddings and other parties had such food........and there was so much of it. They served all you could eat of filet mignon, rack of lamb, lobster tails, some kind of a chicken thing and fresh sea bass, that was out of this world, and all kinds of fruit and salad. The cake was so delicious too. One of my nephews ate five lobster tails and he also had eaten a lot of hors d' oeuvres beforehand. The amazing thing was that it was all so fresh and good that it didn't even seem like a buffet.

But enough about food. We were so glad that we went on Thursday because it gave us such a lot of time to get acquainted with Stacy's family. We had a pretty good trip up Highway 395. It is just a two lane highway for a good part of the way and we were so afraid that we would have traffic problems. So much of it was through mountains and unless there were frequent passing lanes, it could be awful if you got behind a slow moving vehicle and there were plenty of R.V.'s and trucks pulling boats behind because, after all, it is a great place to spend a vacation. There are so many water sports and quite a few lakes too. We were very lucky as we were able to make very good time and we got there at exactly 3:00 p.m. which was our target goal. It took us 9 hours to drive there including one stop for lunch and gas.

We went immediately to the beach. Lake Tahoe is such a big lake that it is just like the beach. It was fun to sit there and watch the activities on the water, para sailing, water skiing, boating, canoeing, and swimming. We had a private beach and our own pier. The kids were diving off the pier and having a great time. Rich's new step children are Trent, Troy and Lily. The oldest is about 10, the younges is almost six. Troy is somewhere inbetween. They are the cutest, sweetest kids you could ever have and they seemed happy enough to call us Grandpa and Grandma. The great thing is that Rich's kids get along so well with them. Two of his boys are still living at home and they are so good with the little ones. Altogether, the families blended very well.

It was great to have so much time to visit with Stacy's family. She, like Rich, has four siblings. Her parents had four girls and one boy. The difference is that their boy is their oldest, while our boy is our youngest. Her parents are from New York State and one sister lives close to them, while the rest are scattered all over from Texas to Minnesota. We are fortunate to only have one daughter, Jayne, living out of State. She lives in Salt Lake so we do get to see her a couple of times a year. All the rest of ours are in California, except for Rich and it is hard for me to remember that he lives in Nevada. The California/Nevada border is right in the middle of Lake Tahoe, the town, so it is hard to know whether you are in Nevada or California.

We stayed in a cabin behind the main house. Our bed was upstairs and other than the bed was pretty bad (the bed from hell) it was really nice. It had a huge closet, nice bath, and downstairs it had a kitchen and table, and a living room with a pull down couch. Jayne slept there, but she just slept on the couch without pulling it down. The main house, which was right in front of our cabin, is very large. It had six or seven bedrooms and a huge kitchen. Stacy's family stayed there and all of our children stayed at the Lakeside Inn, which is a hotel casino and also where Stacy works. They all tell me that their accomodations were great! We spent most of our time in the front yard. They had so many comfortable chairs out there and we were right on the water. I was surprised how close the beach was. The wedding was held out there on the lawn, with the gorgeous lake behind. They were married at 6:30, so it wasn't quite dark, but was pretty dark by the time we were finished eating.

We had planned to stay four days and come home on Monday but Dick was really having trouble with his blood pressure. It seemed to go up and his head was really hurting him. Sue, our daughter, had the same problem, so we decided we had better get him off the mountain, so we left Sunday about noon and got home about 9 hours later. It was really good to be able to sleep in our own bed Sunday night.

We are pretty well rested now. The funny thing is that I took my huge bottle of biofreeze with me so that I could use it on all of my painful parts and it was amazing but I didn't have to use it at all. I didn't have any pain!!! I just couldn't understand it! As soon as we got home though, all the pain came back. Can anyone explain how this could possibly have happened? I didn't even have much trouble with my breathing, which so many thought I would. We were about 6500 altitude. I did get a little more tired when I did anything, like making the bed, or anything that required a little bit of energy. I noticed then that I wan't breathing quite as well and I tired very quickly, but as for pain, it was super neat not having any.

I'm about ready to stop now, even though I don't have my pictures yet. Dick will have to post them later when he gets home from his meeting.

Love to all

Darlene