Can we say Tahoe?

A few days before we left to come home from Texas Jason was itching to make a trip to Tahoe so he jumped on Priceline, found a great deal on hotel rooms, and booked the trip.

With my slightly Type A personality I was excited to go, but focusing on the whole unpacking and repacking within 24 hours thing...I am so thankful for Jason's spontaneity because let's just face it...life would be boring without it!

So we flew home Wednesday with 6 bags of luggage, a pack n play, and a carseat...thanks Nicki for picking us up with all our "stuff"...we were one less bag because Southwest decided to send Riley's bag to Ft. Lauderdale...slightly out of the way! They delivered it to our door the next night however so all was well!

We got home Wednesday evening and pretty much all hit the hay!

Thursday went like this...I worked, Tahoe battery was dead and Jason had to replace, had no food in the house so we ate out all day...after I was done with work we headed to Sports Chalet to buy all of our ski clothes because we had NONE, showed our babysitter and her brother how to take care of the dogs while we were gone, and rang in the New Year unpacking ALL of our luggage and repacking for Tahoe...whew what a day!

Friday we got up, loaded the truck and were on our way!

We were so fortunate to not run into any traffic and it was fun to see the change as we climbed the summit...starting to see a little snow!Then we saw more snow...I love how it looked covering the trees! The radio was claiming that they were requiring chains but they weren't really checking...comforting I know!

We have four wheel drive and all terrain tires so we were good but there were little Honda's going up with no chains and it really wasn't that bed...everyone just took it kinda slow!


Tada! Now we're seeing snow...it was so pretty!

We headed straight to the Heavenly Ski Resort to try and go up the mountain that afternoon but they were having high winds and everything was starting to shut down so we didn't make it up to ski that day!

Riley remembered these carved out animals from our first trip to Tahoe and she loved saying hi to them and playing in the snow!

Carefully examining the situation!

It's all good...she had this continuous desire to eat the snow...yuck!

Since we couldn't ski we decided to go tubing and sledding...the weather at the bottom of the mountain was fine so off we went!

We found this tube chute and took Riley on it a couple of times...she loved it!

Weeeee!

Family pic!

Me and my girl!

We had enough of tubing so we took our own sled to a local park and did some sledding!

So much fun with the snow spraying everywhere!

Riley, who is slightly independent, wanted to sled by herself on her belly...maybe next year sweetie!

After the sledding and tubing we grabbed an early dinner and headed to our hotel to get a good night's sleep...or so we thought...it was a rough night!

We still made it to meet some friends for breakfast the next morning by 7 and were riding up the gondola by 8...not too bad!

The Heavenly resort was SOOO nice and the views were breathtaking...here's where the gondola drops you off...lots of places to eat, play in the snow, etc. and you ride the lifts up from here to ski all over...half of the resort is in California and half is in Nevada!

They had an entire kids area up here and while Riley wasn't quite old enough to do some of the things she could do the sledding...we met a cute little boy Blake with his parents and the two of them sledded together for about an hour...Jason and I took turns skiing while the other one did sledding with Riley...here's a video of our sledding girl!

Thankfully the Bogart family was up at Tahoe the same weekend and they offered to watch Riley for a bit while Jason and I skied a few runs together...it was so much fun!

Here we are at the top...like I said the views were AMAZING!

Here I am getting ready to ski down...I am happy to report I had NO falls and jumped right into skiing even though it's been a few years!

Here's Jason at the top...he's a GREAT skier and even gets a little crazy now and then!

Riley loved just playing in the snow...this was her own little mountain that she would climb up and slide down!

After a fun morning of ski / snow time we were hungry and I was so proud of Riley...she had been so good considering the lack of sleep we all got.

She starting getting a little fussy and asked me to hold her in her...her way of asking to be held is saying "I want you"...so cute! I picked her up, she laid her head on my shoulder, and she was instantaneously asleep...my child has never done that before so she must have been one sleepy girl!

Her nap only lasted about 30 minutes and when she woke up she was not happy...she was still tired and couldn't get comfortable so I decided to take her back to the room and let Jason ski the afternoon.

She never went back to sleep and even showed me how she can get out of her pack 'n play...awesome! We just "rested" and watched Home Alone on tv...it was nice!

When Jason got done skiing we went to dinner with friends and called it a night...we all slept much better the second night...thank the Lord!

Sunday we got up early and headed to Sierra, a different ski resort, that had openings for childcare and had great military discounts! We put Riley in daycare for half day and Jason and I skied it up all morning!

Riley had a blast at daycare...they played on a Magic Carpet that pulls them around in the snow and they had a bounce house outside where she preferred to just sit and let everyone else bounce her..haha!

We picked her up and headed home and again had NO traffic which everyone tells us is unheard of! We had a blast and can't wait to go back!