Tahoe 2012

Tahoe. My new favorite place! We were SO blessed to be given the opportunity to visit Tahoe as a family - only the second time we've ever had a family vacation! I was a little nervous about going on vacation with the kids - our first family trip didn't go off as smoothly as I'd hoped - and Tahoe, a 10 hour drive to get there. . .hmmm. . .but we just couldn't pass the opportunity up. My parents (the awesome parents they are) let us borrow their van and off we went. Praise the Lord, it was an amazing ride BOTH ways - so thankful for the invention of in-car DVD players (and iPhones) - when they're a little older we'll enforce a little more family car/game time - but not this time around :-P  

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Breakfast at Starbucks in Bakersfield on the way up, still in PJs :)

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As we made our way up the mountain, we started seeing snow on the ground and I was ecstatic. As we made it to our condo in Stateline, NV, the ground was COVERED in snow. Awesome. In fact, here's the view from our front door - AWE-Mazing!! (and a few snowy shots from the road from our snowy day, Sunday)

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A few snapshots of our place - great location, perfect size for the four of us!! Saturday, when we got in, we went to the grocery store and bought food for the week - which came in handy when we were snowed in for the majority of the day Sunday! Prior to being snowed in, we were able to drive through the casinos and walk around the shops in downtown South Tahoe (even visit with Santa, although neither kid really wanted to have anything to do with him :-/). Sunday was the only day we had to put snow chains on the tires, thankfully!

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Sledding! This was our first time sledding, on a driveway next to our condo. Matthew had a BLAST - Kaylie kept saying her tummy hurt at the end of every run, it scared her a bit!

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Heavenly! Monday was a GORGEOUS day, so we decided to take the Gondola ride of the Heavenly run in South Tahoe. It takes you up to an observation point with just AMAZING views (and freezing wind!!!) - it's there that Kaylie discovered her love for eating snow :) After hanging out there a bit, we took the gondola up the steep side of the mountain to the top, where we walked around in mid-calf deep snow, threw some snowballs, rolled down a few hills, and just had some snow fun :)

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Emerald Bay - We had heard that Emerald Bay had some amazing views, so we decided to drive a bit around the lake to see it - wasn't to far from the south actually.  There were some rock "mountains" to climb, some breathtaking views. . .and an adventure to Vikingsholm to be had!

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We hiked a mile downhill to the lake beachfront, and an awesome little castle called Vikigsholm. Apparently it's open to tours during the summers, but it's all boarded up in the winter. Still pretty cool to walk around.  The little island in the lake has a little tea house, or tea "castle" that went with the home. We all loved exploring it down there. . .however hiking up hill for a mile, not so much. We ended up carrying the kids the majority of the way. . .and they are heavy!  And unfortunately, Kaylie must have brushed up against some poison ivy while playing hide-and-seek with Matthew, because I rolled up my sleeves to carry Kaylie up the hill, and by that evening a rash began breaking out on my arms. . .getting worse over the next few days. SO ITCHY! Oh well, at least no one else got it!

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Tuesday we started off by driving around the west side of the lake up to Squaw Valley. Another slightly snowy day and pretty cold, but it was fun to walk around the shops and eat lunch at Fireside Pizza. They also had a gondola ride up the mountain, but we didn't take it this time.

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After Squaw we headed to Adventure Mountain - a place you can go with groomed sledding hills and plenty of places to play in the snow. We got all bundled up and grabbed our sled and snow discs and headed up the hills! Matthew has found one of his favorite activities - he had a BLAST sliding down the hills again and again - whether on the sled with Josh or myself or on the discs himself, he had a blast. Kaylie and I decided to play in the snow and make a snowman - it was so much fun to build a snow man - the first snowman I remember building myself!! We had a BLAST playing there until snow/sleet started blasting us in the face - that's when we knew it was time to go!

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All-in-all such an amazing trip and such an amazing blessing. We had such a wonderful time as a family, and we all LOVE the snow. It would be great to go back every winter, but we'll probably have to alternate with something more local like Palomar :) We'll see - that won't be our last trip to the snow, that's for sure!!!
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