Ski Week

Ah, Winter Break. After the rush of Smunch's birthday and his big Jackie Robinson presentation, the break from school was most welcome. If you live around here, you've doubtlessly heard this week called "ski week". It starts with President's Day weekend and goes for the rest of the week.

Since I'm one of those inflexible kind of moms who don't believe in pulling my kids out of school for something like a ski trip, we go to the snow during ski week. I've figured out a way to make this work for us. We leave on President's Day and come back on Friday, missing the entirety of the weekend traffic. I'd booked our cabin back in October, I think, so we were set.

I love the little cabin we've found. It's old and shabby, but warm, incredibly well stocked and with enough bedrooms for the kids to each have their own. Oh, and it's cheap. Did I mention that?

So, we headed up on Monday. There was no traffic to speak of. We made it to the cabin before the cleaning crew was even finished. So, we sat outside for a minute or two and then moved right in. We went into Tahoe City and picked up all our ski rentals. The kids had reservations for a private lesson at Squaw on Tuesday and I was planning on a group lesson while Daddy cruised around the slopes freely. Although we were staying about half an hour away, we got there without incident, negotiated the rather huge resort and found all our lessons on time.The kids went off with Celeste, their very awesome instructor. I joined a Level 2 class and we took off up to High Camp where we had our skills assessed before learning anything. There were four women in my class. I enjoyed them all and Curtis, our instructor, seemed good, but the class wasn't really what I'd hoped for. Instead of learning anything new, we rehashed all the stuff I already knew how to do. It meant I got some instruction on how to refine the "skills" I arguably possess, but not much more.

And it was COLD up there at High Camp. I'd purchased nice ski pants and a new ski jacket before leaving. I was wearing four more layers of clothes under that, but I was freezing and traveling the lifts was particularly painful. Despite my nice new ski gloves, my fingernails felt like they just might pop right off. They hurt.

The kids arrived at High Camp shortly after I did. I saw them several times as I skiied down the beginner slopes.I didn't enjoy myself very much even though I was in good company, but I agreed to go back up with Daddy and the kids after lunch. It was windier and colder. I was with Mam and she'd been trying to tell me something about being bored, but truth be told, I'm scared to death of ski lifts and I was barely listening to her. I should have.

It turns out what she meant was that her lessons about making big S-turns were boring and she planned to take off like a shot from the top of the run. And she did. I sent Daddy after her, but she was already at the bottom.

I took a couple of runs and then left them all up there...while I went back down the mountain, grabbed my laptop and found myself a cushy chair and a $6 mocha at Starbucks.

Half an hour or so later, I got a call from Daddy. He'd overshot the Funitel that would have taken them down the mountain and ended up on an intermediate slope. The kids had done a good job negotiating it for a while, but finally gave out. Ski Patrol was coming to pick them up. They'd be late getting back. I laughed. I was so comfy at Starbucks that I didn't mind if they were late and obviously Daddy had it handled. He called me again when they were down.

I met him and a couple of hysterically sobbing kids on the way to the parking lot. They were totally fine, but Daddy had had to ski down the mountain while Ski Patrol whisked them away on a snowmobile for a lonely trip to the bottom on the Funitel. Daddy met them there, but their little hands were so cold that they really hurt. And the sobbing went on and on for at least 15 minutes. Given my general love for skiing (which, for the record is still non-existant) I tried really hard not to laugh as they sobbed.

Despite the slighly traumatic end to our day on Tuesday, the kids were rarin' to go again on Wednesday and I was game to take another stab at enjoying skiing. We headed to Homewood...which is smaller, shabbier and a whole lot cheaper. It also happens to have beautiful views and some nice, long beginner runs, all the way from the top of the mountain.As expected, Mam has become a fearless little skiier while her brother, so much more like his mom, is ever-so-cautious. But Daddy helped them along. And I followed them around the mountain. I think we hit every beginner run there was. The kids seemed to have fun. But I most certainly didn't. I'm clearly not cut out for this stuff. I don't like being cold, I don't like going fast, I hate ski lifts, I don't like people coming up behind me at 50mph. Oh, and I'm not a fan of wiping out.

My overdeveloped sense of self-preservation, I'm afraid, will forever keep me from enjoying skiing. I quit at lunchtime and spent a couple of hours reading in the car...because Homewood is too shabby to have decent indoor places for those who aren't skiing and certainly no Starbucks! The van was comfier. And after skiing for the morning, I was pretty convinced that this is going to be my last ski trip. Daddy can take the kids, but this is such a monumental waste of money for me...

Living Up to Ski Week

I love Lake Tahoe in the winter. It's painfully pretty. But then, it's often pretty darned cold too. And I'm not a skiier. So, that generally leaves me sipping hot chocolate by the fire.

But in our little corner of California, we have this funny little week off school in the middle of February. Although in our district, it's technically known as Winter Break, everyone calls it Ski Week. That's because they instituted this break to try and keep the families around here from pulling their kids out of school to go skiing. Don't know how well that works.

Last year, we did go to Tahoe during Ski Week, but there was no skiing involved, just sledding. This year was different, although it turned out that Daddy had unknowingly booked a cabin just a few doors down from the one we rented last year. The drive in was easy. It wasn't snowing. It was warm and the roads were very, very clear. It was sunny every day and there was significantly less snow when we left than when we got there.

And this year, we were there for Smunch's birthday. For his birthday, he and Mam went to ski school at one of the smaller, lower-key resorts.The outcome of a day worth of ski school was somewhat predictable. Smunch wasn't in the greatest of health (or mood) for starters. He's not fearless. He's cautious. He gets frustrated easily. I talked to him at lunchtime and he wasn't altogether thrilled with the experience.

Mam, on the other hand. Well Mam is fearless, she's almost always in a good mood and although she's easily frustrated, she bounces back quickly.Smunch was tired and grumpy at the end of the day. Mam was just tired. It didn't seem like either of them had really learned a whole lot, each of them falling several times on the way down the tiny little slope in the lesson area. But they could stay up on skis for a few seconds, at least.Daddy went skiing on his own while the kids were in ski school. Me? I took a book and sat by the fire reading when I wasn't out tromping around trying to find the kids with my telephoto lens. There was a lot more reading than photography.

With two exhausted kids, we left as soon as ski school got out. We went back to the cabin and jumped in the hot tub (which turned out to be way too hot) and appreciated our view for a little while...

Lazy Days at the Lake

Well, it's nice to think it could have been lazy days at the lake, but with three kids under the age of 8, lazy is hard to come by.

I had promised myself that I wouldn't try to leave town more than twice this summer. In fact, I even combined our camping trip with our San Diego trip for that express purpose. In the end, of course, it served more to leave time to schedule something else entirely.

After the nostalgia I experienced during our winter trip to Lake Tahoe, I felt the urge to see if I could get my family together for an even more nostalgic summer trip. After all, we didn't spend a lot of time there in the winter when I was a kid. And look, it worked! We even had a big family breakfast at the Old Post Office Cafe.Of course, this added trip was largely squished in there right before the start of school. Aunt Karen and SPENCER! were visiting and my parents joined us too. It took a little doing to find a cabin that we could rent for just three nights, would fit all of us (sort of), had wireless internet (for Daddy) and took dogs (for my parents, who ultimately decided to leave the dog at home.) But I found this little place, in just the neighborhood we were hoping for.It's in the same neighborhood we used to stay in. If you rent the right cabin, you get access to the neighborhood pool and the private pier. This cabin had it all. Turns out it also had a broken internet connection and at least one resident mouse, but I digress.

We arrived just before dinnertime on Thursday, so we had that evening and two full days to spend by the lake, Karen and I trying to relive our childhood, the kids excited by all the possibilities for getting in trouble and my parents just trying to put up with it all. I think Daddy found it relaxing.After a relatively long walk to breakfast on Friday morning, we lazed around the cabin for a little while, then made ourselves a picnic lunch to take to Sugar Pine Point State Park. It was a lovely spot with a historic mansion, a pier, beaches, forest and picnic areas. We never quite made it on the hike we'd intended to take since the rocky beach took up an awful lot of time, but everyone had fun and it was a lovely day. The kids got pretty wet trying to keep their balance while wading in the slippery rocks. We managed to take a short hike out to the "lighthouse", which turned out to be more of a "light beacon" than a lighthouse. I should have taken a picture, just so you could appreciate how unimpressive it was! Still, there were some beautiful views of the lake along the way.The kids and grandpa all jumped in the hot tub out on the deck when we got back to the cabin. All in all, the hot tub was probably one of the most recommendable parts about the cabin, which had sleeping space for 10 people, but not nearly enough living space. And Aunt Karen should probably be recommended for sainthood for being willing to sleep in the loft with the three kids.

On Saturday, we tried to fit in everything we hadn't managed to do on Friday. That meant that, after a brief, but exciting, bear sighting in the street, we had a quick breakfast and zoomed out to the pier to teach the kids how to catch crayfish. Another beautiful day, but it was breezy and kind of cold. Even though we had no intention of going in the water, we wore our swim suits because our next planned stop was a beach north of there.The kids were thrilled by the idea they could catch crayfish just by lowering bacon on a string into the water. They spent a lot of time doing that, with Cassie probably being the most enthralled, as our resident animal lover.The three kids caught 25 crayfish in all. Not a bad catch for a first time. Not being big fans of steamed crayfish, we threw them all back at the end. But before that, see this?This is my family (including me) fishing off the pier. See anything wrong with this? Well, no, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with this. Now, a friend of mine recently wrote a blog post espousing the lameness of swim lessons. I was inclined to agree. It seems like neither of my kids have made much progress. But this little incident changed my mind.

You'll notice that everyone's leaning over the side. It's not because anyone's down there. No one is. We're all just scouring the bottom, looking for crayfish. But if you lean too far over, it turns out you fall off. And the water's cold. One particular Smunch discovered that for himself...falling from that height where we're standing, right into the water. And he could swim well enough to get to a pillar and hold on until Daddy jumped in and got him. I, being ever so concerned and helpful, just yelled "Don't forget to get his shoes!" (His Crocs were floating away). According to Daddy, that suggestion was met with "I don't care about my shoes. I care about my life!"

Smunch was rather proud of himself for getting to go swimming in the lake, but said he wouldn't be getting in again at the beach. You can see how well that worked out.We actually missed the beach we'd intended to stop at and ended up at a beach we'd wanted to go to but had decided it was too far away. Oh well. It was lovely and sandy. And how often do you find yourself sitting on a sandy beach with forest and a giant granite mountain behind you?It turned out to be pretty hot sitting on the beach, but too cold for many of us in the water. Daddy went for a little swim, but I wasn't so tempted. The kids waded and dug in the sand. We had a picnic and headed back. We went to the community pool...which was also cold...and got the kids ice cream, while they shivered. Getting ice cream at the snack bar was another childhood favorite of mine and Aunt Karen's. I doubt we were ever quite so cold while we ate it though. All the more reason to jump in the hot tub when we got back!

And that was it. The trip was short and sweet. It was really much too short. It would have been great to have a whole week up there to unwind and let the kids run around the cabin while we all drank margaritas on the deck. Instead, we battled traffic to get back on Sunday...the Sunday before the Wednesday when school started. Aunt Karen and SPENCER! stayed until Tuesday...and then it was another bittersweet goodbye. Good thing we'll be seeing them again at Thanksgiving!

Breakfast Nostalgia

As you might've guessed, I grew up in a family that wasn't big on snow or winter sports. By the time I tried to learn to ski at the age of 21, it was far too late. Perhaps it was always too late and I've always had a good portion of stodgy, thrill-averse old lady in me.

My parents took my sister and me up to the snow only once during our entire childhood (although we later moved to England where it snowed with some regularity and we did plenty of sledding around the house). I suppose they wanted to make sure we knew what snow was, at least.

That doesn't mean my family didn't like Tahoe though. As one of the premier vacation destinations from the San Francisco Bay Area, we did make a yearly trip up there. We always went during the summer when we could swim in the very cold lake, fish for crawdads, rent jet skis and hang out by the pool, playing bingo with the other vacationing kids.

I have a lot of fond memories of the little traditions our family had on our Tahoe vacations...bringing bacon fat as crayfish bait, getting ice cream at the pool snack shop, my dad's morning trip to the 7-11, when he never failed to bring back donuts. But one of my fondest memories is of the place in the picture above.

This is the Old Post Office Coffee Shop in Carnelian Bay. As the name suggests, it was once a post office. But by the time my family was spending a week each summer in Carnelian Bay, it was already a cute little breakfast spot and we went there at least once each trip.

During our last Tahoe trip, I learned that this place was indeed still open, but we didn't have the chance to go. I was way more disappointed than I should have been. It's not really a secret that this trip was, in part, just because I had to eat there again. It's not that the food is so amazing, although it was yummy. I also felt an inexplicable, urgent need to share that part of my childhood with my own kids.We went on our first morning out and I'm happy to say that it didn't disappoint. It was just as I remembered, right down to the cute little dining room with the old-fashioned postage stamp wallpaper.That's the waitress there with the red hair and the black "Go Postal" T-shirt. All the staff had these shirts. It's funny to think that slogan would have been totally meaningless when I first went there.

The kids devoured their pancakes and I savored my blueberry pancakes...something I discovered for the very first time at the Old Post Office and have loved ever since.

Although our summer is already full of vacation plans, I'm already plotting a summer trip back to Tahoe. I'll drag my sister and SPENCER! with us too. This nostalgia was too good not to share!

Tahoe Take Two

It seems like it's been an eternity since we were really able to go on vacation. When I say "vacation", I don't mean the kind where we spend our days trying to placate whiney kids or doing kid-friendly activities that we really aren't excited about. Those seem like necessary excursions, but I'm really talking about the kind where we get to unwind, at least a little, and spend some time doing things we really enjoy.

So, during "ski week" this year, we decided to go back to Tahoe...no family obligations, no one to coordinate meals with, no one with expectations that our kids must learn to ski. No free cabin either, but we found a great cabin that was everything we needed and we were smart and lucky enough to leave on Tuesday and come back on Friday. No blizzards. No traffic...although we did have to use chains over the summit to the lake.

The kids really wanted to see snow falling and fall it did. Except there was a lot of snow falling as we approached the lake and virtually none after we got to the cabin. But I was proud of myself for having Daddy open the windows in back so the kids could have snow fall on them...and for pointing out to Smunch when there was a dainty little snowflake in all its crystalline glory sitting on his sleeve as Daddy removed the snow cables from the car. He was amazed that snowflakes really look like...well, snowflakes. Next time. I'm bringing the magnifying glass.

By Wednesday morning, the neighborhood around the cabin was a true winter wonderland. The trees were all still coated and the road around the cabin still covered. I took some time to take some scenic photos after we trekked down to get breakfast (worthy of its own blog post) and came away with some shots that show just how pretty everything was when the clouds parted...There were a lot of impressive and beautiful icicles to be seen hanging from the local cabins, but these ones caught my eye. Must be windy down there by the lake!It was the perfect way to start our little mini-vacation in the snow...already promising to be beautiful and serene. And what do you know? I read a BOOK while we were there! I still can't quite get over how amazing I think that is!