Reno, NV

So this past weekend, we took a quick little trip to Reno to watch my brother's state soccer tournament.

When my mom told me that the finals would be in Reno, I figured we totally should go! The drive couldn't be too long... Reno's up north relative to Vegas and so is Orem... it would probably be a 4 or maybe 5 hour trip.

WRONG.

The drive took about 8 hours. However we did make quite a few stops along the way. We were bored and figured we might as well look around the small, northern Nevada towns (Winnemuca, Elko, Fernley... just to name a few).

Most of our drive looked like this... just the road, some mountains and then pretty much nothing else.

{Us about an hour into the drive... notice that we are still smiling at that point.}

It was so cool to watch my brother Blake play some soccer once we finally arrived at our destination.

I seriously love just going to all my brothers' games.

Soccer, baseball, football, whatever.

I really do think it's just fun. And it's one thing that I really miss being up here in Utah.

{Blake is number 9. Always has been. He's seriously a little stud out there. While his team ended up taking 2nd in the state... we did get to see Blake score a sweet header goal off of a corner kick. Go Blakey. You rock!}

After the Saturday game, we headed up to Lake Tahoe to see a cool little tribute to my dad.

Before my dad passed away, he had been working with developers at the Squaw Valley Resort to put in a high-end sunglasses shop. He developed a great relationship with these guys, and so they put a plaque and telescope thing next to his shop in honor of him. I had never seen it, so really wanted to make the trip up the mountain.

Things like this really mean a lot to both me and my family. It's nearly been 9 years... so knowing that his memory is still around in ways such as this is really a special thing.

The shop has since changed owners several times, but here's where his used to be:

It really is a beautiful place up there, and I would love to come again some day and stay for a while.

On our way back from Tahoe... we drove past this store:

{Cabela's.... aka Chase's favorite store ever.}

{Basically all things hunting, fishing, camping, shooting, etc. etc. that you could possibly imagine. Hence why it's just Chase's "place".}

My step dad Rick was down to take a look around too, so we went in for a while and took some cool pics with animals.

{Kade and I pretending to be scared of the giant elephant right behind us.}

Both Chase and I really wanted to go see the Nevada State Capitol building in Carson City while we were up north. We took a quick side-trip over there on Saturday night. It was pretty cool! But cold and rainy... so we just observed from the warmth of our car.

{Lunch at The Pizza Shack}

All in all, the unexpectedly long (and boooring) drive was worth it to hang with my parents and brothers for the weekend. It was good to be with my momma on Mother's Day too! Our route back home to Orem and my parents' and brothers' back home to Vegas took us both through Fernley, NV before splitting off in different directions. We stopped there at "The Pizza Shack" for some lunch before saying goodbye. Surprisingly, the place was clean and the food was yummy even though it looked at little sketch from the outside. If you ever (heaven forbid!) are traveling across northern Nevada... I highly recommend!