4th of July in Tahoe

Fourth of July might be one of my favorite holidays,  

so I always do my best to spend it in one of  my favorite place:  Lake Tahoe

But this year?       It rained. 

Talk about a bummer.  It NEVER rains in Tahoe!

After spending the morning at Shannon's house waiting for the heavy rain to pass, we finally made our way down to the lake and put the boat in.  Clouds or no clouds.  We had to make it happen!

We got there just in time to see the helicopters putting on a show and pulling people in out of the water.  (All for fun -- no emergency!)

Scott seemed a little too interested in the helicopters, and right then and there I decided that would be his birthday present next month:  a helicopter ride around Tahoe!

So back to the boat.  We hadn't been on it 5 minutes when Shannon said something just wasn't right. 

It wasn't speeding up like it was supposed to.  So rather than getting stuck out in the middle of the lake and having to toe it in, we just turned it off close to shore and blew up the paddle boards!

Scott went out first.  I was a little weary of just how rocky the water might be with the wind and storm moving in.

But he convinced me to go, too.  

Which meant he had to blow up my paddle board, too.  :)

I was a little unsteady at first, but the waves really weren't too bad.

Once we got the boat off the water, we set up camp on the shore (with a thousand other people!) to hang for the evening while we waited for the fireworks show.

Group shot:

I don't sit still very well, so we definitely took the paddleboards out a few more times...

About the time I had given up on the sunset doing anything cool, I looked over to see THIS:

I immediately jumped on the paddleboard to get a better view.

Scott followed quickly with the camera to capture some amazing shots. ^^

 And then, poor guy, he has to deal with my photography -- which is never anywhere as good as his!

Back on dry land, the fireworks show was everything I had hoped for and more.  

It's just my favorite -- the bright lights, shimmering colors floating down, the boom so loud you can feel it, all while listening to the waves lap on the shore.  

Aaaahhh it's just the best day of the year!

Another successful  Tahoe 4th of July in the books!

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Sunday morning was completely different than Saturday morning.

Blue skies, warm sun -- more like the Tahoe I'm used to!

So that meant more beach and lake time!  (No boat -- it was still broken.)

Scott had a brilliant (I thought crazy, at the time) idea of putting the GoPro on the end of the paddle, and then tossing it up in to the air.  

I've learned to just go along with his ideas.  Especially if they're related to photography.

And you can see why:

How amazing is that??

I actually submitted it to a photo contest on Instagram later that month, just by adding a # to the picture -- and no shocker here, but it WON first place!  Pretty hard to top that picture, in my opinion.

And the prize for winning:  another paddleboard to add to the collection!  (One that costs $1,349!)

It was a quick afternoon at the lake, as I had to back home that night.  

No worries, though.  I went back not once, but twice in July alone. :)