Wonderful Visit!

Words cannot describe the wonderful time that I had while my mother and Barb were here. Since they were here for a full week we really had time to see wonderful sights and also had time to just sit around and paint postcards to send back home. Moving all the way out here from family, sometime I forget what it feels like to just be able to sit with other creative people and do the things we love to do.
Some of just the many things we saw included spawning salmon up at Lake Tahoe. There is a river that they have made a viewing area where you walk down into the ground and view the salmon through glass and watch them swim on by. None of us thought that we would ever get to see that. Brian and I had only discovered this place through his coworker a week before Mom and Barb came out. What timing!
Here is proof that we did relax and just take time to reflect on the day's adventures. Here is the table that we sat at with mom and Barb working hard at creating paintings to send back home to family. Yes I painted as well, somone had to take the picture!
Mom and Barb trying to take it all in. I was able to drive them along route 89, south of where I live and show them all the sights. It's a really nice drive because every time you round another corner or crest another hill the scenery changes and you see completely new things. It's hard to express just how far you can see. I hope this picture conveys even the slightest scense of how it looks.
On their first full day here we drove all the way around Lake Tahoe. This picture was taken while standing on a bridge over the Truckee River looking East towards Lake Tahoe at sunset.
This was our last pull off of the day as the light was almost gone. We all got out of the car to take it all in. It was rather cold at this point so we didn't stay as long as we might have liked. This is Lake Tahoe on a cloudy cool evening, looking Southwest.
I have so many pictures that I just chose a few to post for now. I will post more in the next couple days.
For those of you that heard Brian and I went to Oregon the othere week I will be posting photos from that trip. Oregon is where I need to live. It's so beautiful there that just a vacation will not due.