Tahoe

So a couple of months ago my cousin called and said "our family will be heading to Tahoe, and we'd like to invite you to join us for a day or two and then maybe you could take the kids back home while we stick around another day or two.  Think about it and let me know."  So I thought about it and said sure.

Thursday the older kids were dropped off at my house by Da Aunt and Da Uncle, who got a quick tour of the garden, then it was off to Costco to gas up the car and head up Highway 50 toward Tahoe.  Traffic wasn't too bad and we made good time......I'd never been up highway 50 to Tahoe before.....I've only ever gone as far as Apple Hill.  I wondered if we were going to reach the snow line and about 7K feet plus or minus some, we hit it.  The boys were pretty good company on the trip there, and Benton was playing the navigator and we got to where my cousins were staying just fine.  We parked and met up with the family.

We went to a great buffet dinner at Harrah's and enjoyed a lot of good food.  The view from the dining area was nice.  The kids got some time in at the arcade, then it was off to sleep in preparation for the next days activities. 

I admit, I enjoy vacations mostly because I can sleep in, which I did.  Everyone else was up but I wasn't ready to get out of bed.  Eventually I made my way out to the living room and participated in the plans for the day.  Hiking was the first order of the day.  We drove up to Eagle Falls where we enjoyed much hiking, including up to the snow line, which we found out later was out of bounds. 

We are way up there if you look close

After some hiking we broke for lunch and entertained ourselves watching some jays in the trees.

Then we moved down the road to the Emerald Bay so we could take some more pictures and hike some more.  The hike down was pretty enjoyable....downhill all the way.  The hike up, took a little longer but was well worth it. The viking style house was great, the falls were gorgeous, and the fun along the journey excellent.

After we were tuckered out from hiking back up the hill, it was time for some minigolf.

Then it was time to head back to the hotel for some dinner.  After dinner we packed up the car and I headed back down the hill with the kiddos.  We made pretty good time and everyone went straight to bed tuckered from the days activities and the long drive.

Saturday was a quiet morning.  My attempt to sleep in didn't work, the light streaming in through the window woke me up, but I took advantage of the quiet time to read some of the talks from the last conference.  Chase was the first one up, we had some breakfast, then Leah, then the boys.  They got a kick out of eating cereal with chocolate almond milk which was all we had at the time.  Then I took the littles on a trip to costco where we enjoyed all the tasty samples and I checked out new cell phone options.  Then I decided that the kids might enjoy a movie so plans were made to head to Davis for Kung Fu Panda 2.  First I pulled up to the wrong theater so we had to quickly make our way to the other one.  Then my skills at parallel parking were tested as I tried to park the minivan (a bigger car than my small compact), so I made the boys get out to make sure I didn't hit anything.  We made it to the ticket line, which was longer than I expected.  We got our tickets and entered the theater and the only seats left were the very front row.   Talk about a new perspective when watching a movie.  The kids enjoyed the movie a lot, there was laughter and they kept quoting it on the way home. 

We made a quick stop at Papa and Grammi's house to drop off one kid for a youth dance, and then we grabbed some tacos for dinner and getting the kids to bed.  I was a good cousin (parental figure for the day) and waited till the oldest got back from the dance before I went to bed.  I awoke bright and early Sunday morning to get the little ones bathed and ready for church.  I woke the boys about an hour before we had to leave, and we got everyone into the car and headed to church.  Little did I know it doesn't take that long to cross Woodland on a Sunday morning and we ended up at the church building half an hour before church started.  The kids were laughing about it and giving me some guff, but hey, I was glad we got there on time.  My cousins recently started attending the Spanish branch and it was fun to listen to all the meetings in Spanish.  Then it was home where we had sandwiches for lunch.  We had story time, a walk, some quiet time, and then popcorn and games.  It was a great weekend.