The Pursuit of a Perfect Life

I post lots of pictures from our experiences out west on this blog, but it is truly never with the intention of bragging or boasting about our lives.  Instead, it's a way to document our adventures, because without this blog we would have already forgotten many of the details from our various trips, hikes, etc.

This weekend the Celebrity Golf Tournament was held in South Lake.  It was so neat to see so many celebrities in one place.  I have often thought, "How nice it must be to be rich and famous. Their lives must be PERFECT." Truthfully, after seeing the craziness they must endure just to go out in public, I happily choose my quiet little life without fame or fortune.

The truth is... nobody's life is perfect.  We all have ups and downs.  And while I only post about the "ups" and the exciting times, the truth is that even here in beautiful South Lake Tahoe, life can seem a bit crappy sometimes.  There are days that I REALLY hate going to work.  There are definitely times I get stressed out!  There are times when I feel like there is not enough money in our bank account,etc. But then I'm reminded how awesome it is that I have a job at all.  And all that stress during the work week makes our little "mini vacations" on the weekends that much better.  And let's face it... we will never have ENOUGH money to do all the things we want to do but that's what keeps us going... if we had enough money to take trips to Australia and Hawaii and Europe, etc, then once we are done... what would we have to look forward to?  

This weekend was near perfect.  We started with a hike on Friday.  It was supposed to be 9 miles total. We thought we mapped it out perfectly. We. were. WRONG!  Actually, our map was wrong.  One part of the map showed a road that we thought we could drive down... NOPE!  So we had to walk it without knowing how far.  That added 3 miles of uphill to our original hike.

The picture doesn't do the vertical climb justice.  

 We finally got to the trailhead for Star Lake which our map says is 1.3 miles to the lake... NOPE!  It's 4 miles!   Yep... 4 flippin' miles of continuous uphill climbing!!!

Zater laying down in the stream as he drank water! 

Looking down trail towards Lake Tahoe! 

Star Lake.  

 So by the time we reached Star Lake we had hiked 7 miles so far and gained 2,900 vertical feet.  Instead of following our original plan... we played in the lake for about 30 min and headed back down the way we came up.

 You would think that the downhill hike would be EASY!  Nope... just as painful as the uphill!

We were absolutely exhausted after our 14 mile hike but decided to go out celebrity spotting that night.  We stopped at Harvey's for a Cinnabon and decided to sit outside and listen to the Rascal Flatts concert. A couple approached us and offered us their tickets... no explanation... just asked if we wanted them.  We accepted and as we walked toward the venue, I realized they were 8th row!  I could not believe it.  Next thing I know, a group of about 5 people walks into the row in front of us and leading the way is Emmitt Smith.  They sat right in front of us and I'm pretty sure Emmitt knew most of the words to the songs!  He was rockin' out to Rascal Flatts!  I really wish I could thank that couple again and I hope one day we can do something equally awesome for another unsuspecting couple.

We also saw Jerome Bettis, Kevin Nealon, Michael Phelps, Jerry Rice, and SO many others at the golf tournament!  We paddled over to the beach and watched the celebs at the 17th hole.

The weekend was amazing and normally, that's all I would post about but today I had to work at the hospital and it was very busy.  I'm supposed to work less than 5 hours on Sundays but today it took me 7 hours to get all the patients seen, and that was only because a lot of them were being discharged.  It was stressful and put me in a really bad mood because I value my Sunday's as being "half days" and it's going to put me into overtime for the week.  I came home to loads of laundry to be done and a filthy house that desperately needed cleaning which stressed me out even further.  Why am I writing about this?  Because even though we live in an AWESOME place... and it seems like we are having nothing but amazing adventures... our lives are still very normal.  We still go through stuff... we just don't usually write about it on the blog!  :)

Rascal Flatts - My Wish 

(I forgot how much I LOVE the lyrics to this song)

I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slowAnd each road leads you where you want to goAnd if you're faced with the choice and you have to chooseI hope you choose the one that means the most to you

And if one door opens to another door closedI hope you keep on walkin' ‘til you find the windowIf it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smileBut more than anything, more than anything

My wish for youIs that this life becomes all that you want it toYour dreams stay big, your worries stay smallYou never need to carry more than you can hold

And while you're out there gettin' where you're gettin' toI hope you know somebody loves youAnd wants the same things tooYeah, this is my wish

I hope you never look back but you never forgetAll the ones who love you and the place you leftI hope you always forgive and you never regretAnd you help somebody every chance you get

Oh, you'd find God's grace in every mistakeAnd always give more than you takeBut more than anything, yeah more than anything

And while you're out there gettin' where you're gettin' toI hope you know somebody loves youAnd wants the same things tooYeah, this is my wish, yeah yeah

My wish for youIs that this life becomes all that you want it toYour dreams stay big, your worries stay smallYou never need to carry more than you can hold

And while you're out there gettin' where you're gettin' toI hope you know somebody loves youAnd wants the same things tooYeah, this is my wish