Tahoe - Before the Beatdown

Last month I nonchalantly asked my parents when they would have their place in Tahoe again and then deviously concocted a plan to score use of it on the weekend. Okay, okay, maybe it wasn't such the devious plan since they pretty much offered it up...but you get the idea.

On Friday, after our time at the Y and then Starbucks (remember the bribe so I could get him out of the jumpy house?) I anxiously packed up the car and waited for Taki to get home. He was able to leave work a little early so we were on the road by 4:30. Not ideal for a Friday but I'll take it. We were a little worried since it seems (from the last Tahoe trip) that Nikos may have inherited my car sickness, so we were hoping that he would fall asleep on the way up. I felt pretty confident about this since he has been on some sort of nap strike (but only at home apparently) as of late and I knew he was tired. Sure enough, a little past Vacaville both kids were down for the count. Wahoo! We dealt with the traffic in Sacramento and then again when we hit 50. We were cruising along when all of a sudden Olive starts coughing in the back seat and pukes ALL OVER everything. She is still facing backwards in her infant seat, so she basically covered herself, her carseat, the seat of the Saturn and the seatbelt. Nice. We pulled over at the little gas station/convenience store in Fresh Pond (this is actually a town. population of like 15) and stripped her down and cleaned everything. Great. Luckily Nikos slept through the whole thing and about 20 minutes later we were back on the road. Good times.

Saturday morning we got up, walked over to our Tahoe Starbucks and then packed the kids up for some sledding. We took the advice of Brenda and our concierge and headed over to a free sledding hill in Nevada.

Taki and Nikos

Me and Olive

Apparently when I told Taki to "take a picture of me with the kids" he didn't realize that I actually wanted Olive's FACE to be in the picture. I guess I will have to spell things out next time.

After sledding for about an hour and a half Nikos was done. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that on his ride down with me we got showered with snow at the end and finished a little wet.

He found a snow cave and was perfectly happy to just chill (ha!) there.

After sledding we headed back to the timeshare and enjoyed a late lunch while we let all of our clothes dry by the fire. As luck would have it sledding for a toddler is pretty tiring so Nikos conked out on the couch (Olive fell asleep on the way home) and we were all able to enjoy a late afternoon nap. I was so thrilled with the nap that I am busy drawing up plans so we can install a permanent sledding hill in our backyard. I haven't quite figured out the snow thing but give it time.

We ventured out to the Village later that night and found a seat by the outdoor fire pit at Fire and Ice. I suggested drinks to cap off the night (shocking) and headed over to the bar for a beer for Taki, a Hot Apple Pie for me and a Hot Coco for Nikos. Poor second child got jilted and scored nothing to drink.

Doesn't Nikos look so old in this picture! (Sob sob.) Poor Olive can barely see with that hat falling over her eyes.

The Boys

The Girls

More Tahoe fun (and videos!) tomorrow.