Monday, June 30, 2025

This and That in June, Part 2!

 

Love these that Sarah made for me!


 The Melanchuks moved to Utah!
 They spent a few nights at John's and Sara's.
Time to move into the house!
Darryl looking over their backyard from the balcony
 off their bedroom.
Bedroom painting.
Family dinner on the 3rd Sunday.
  It's a much bigger group--around 20 were at Josh's and Andrea's.
This is just some of them.
Checking out their temple--the Bountiful Temple!
Matthew celebrated his birthday!
Grandpa celebrated his birthday
 with a surprise visit from some of the Perrys!
(Birthday trip will be a separate blog post.)
Daniel has been working at Lake Wenatchee in Washington.
He has been driving interns around,
 running errands and working at the store.
  Last weekend he went with the shave ice truck
 to a motorcycle convention in a nearby town.  
This photo is from a hike he went on to an old ski jump.
John, Sara, Aubrey and Bethany went to see Star Wars with live music!
Provo Farmer's Market
Camille painted this Book of Mormon for me.
I love it!
She is ready for the 4th of July!
Temple in Oklahoma City.
Sarah is working as a lifeguard this summer.
Sometime ask her about her recent experience
 helping to save someone's life!
Greetings from Sister Melanchuk in sunny Puerto Plata!
Nathaniel celebrated his 12th birthday on June 26th!
He's already busy with some of the books he received!
They spent part of the day at Thanksgiving Point.
Nathaniel especially liked the slide!
On another day they made a visit to Temple Square...
...the Church History Museum...
...and Darryl's office. 
 This is the view from the lunch room.
Summer is a great time for hiking and being outside!
Sam recently hiked in the Wellsville Mountains
Brian took his boys hiking in the Sierras on Juneteenth
 since Jacob did not have school.
And it looks like Elizabeth went fishing!
Who is this mystery guy??
Jacob and Lily graduated from Carroll Elementary School on June 26th!
No more year-round school!
Summer is also a good time for ice cream!
Our Family Home Evening group met at Leatherby's on June 30th.
Although Grandpa is not in the picture,
 his Black and Tan sundae is there on the right!

Lake Adventure!

 In May of 2022 we went on a waterfall adventure

 in search of 10 waterfalls in northern California.

Recently we went on a lake adventure

 and saw many beautiful lakes in the Sierras!

Day 1: Grandpa found this on the internet:

"The Shortest (But Most Scenic) Drive in California

Officially known as the Gold Lake Highway, this little ribbon of road snakes its way past the shores of over twenty alpine lakes."

On our first day we drove 15 miles on Gold Lake Highway and saw many of the lakes including these:

Packer Lake

Salmon Lake
Snag Lake
Haven lake
Lake Lily
The only one where the word "lake" came first
but this is all we could see of it from the highway!
Gold Lake
The largest of the lakes in the area and 100 feet deep.
Professional photos:  Helgramite Lake
Scene from above of four lakes
We also saw lots of views of the Sierra Buttes as they are called.
Later we did a tour of downtown Reno. 
 This is the best photo I could get of the famous sign.
So here it is from the Internet
We enjoyed seeing many works of art throughout the downtown.
This one was interesting!
Later we drove up higher into neighborhoods and looked down on the city.
Day 2: 
Spooner Lake, Nevada
We reached this lake by driving through Reno and Carson City.
This is a manmade lake which is 22 feet deep, covers 100 acres, and surface elevation is 6,972 feet.
We could never find a place to take a picture of it without a hike or causing a traffic accident so this is from the Internet.  That is Lake Tahoe in the background.
Lake Tahoe
We visited Lake Tahoe last year in August
 and I posted about it with lots of pictures.
Lake Tahoe is 1,645 feet deep, 22 miles by 12 miles and surface elevation is 6,225 feet.   It is definitely one of the most beautiful lakes in the world.
It was super crowded everywhere with cars parked long roadways and people walking long distances to see the views.  We stayed in the car to get some photos.
It was bumper to bumper traffic through the towns.
Fallen Leaf Lake:
This is another lake right next to Lake Tahoe
Grandpa took this picture of it in 2017 after a hike.
It is 380 feet deep, 2.9 miles by 1.0 miles and surface elevation is 6,377 feet.
Here is an internet picture of it:
We traveled back to our hotel by way of Mt.Rose
The summit of Mt. Rose is 8,911 feet so it was quite a climb and then down to Reno.
There were some beautiful meadows along the way.
Grandpa has ridden his bike on this road in a 100 mile bike ride from Sparks around the lake and back to Sparks.

Day 3: More Lake Tahoe
We headed back to Lake Tahoe via Truckee and drove through the neighborhood where our family used to rent homes in the summer for vacation.
We also traveled the rest of the road we had missed the day before--mostly in Nevada.
On our way back we enjoyed these beautiful puffy cloud formations!
Day 4: Donner Lake
We drove down to the lake and drove around as much of it as is possible.
Donner Lake is 238 feet deep, 2.7 miles by .6 miles and surface elevation is 5,936 feet.
Then we traveled up the old highway for some spectacular views.
First we checked out the interesting granite outcroppings:
And then there were pull-outs for views of Donner Lake:
It is really a beautiful lake!
We had fun on our Lake Adventure!