Tahoe Trip!

Meeting friends in college is pretty easy. You are constantly exposed on a daily basis to people in your peer group so organically over time friendships naturally and effortlessly emerge. When you exit college and enter the workforce, it can get a bit trickier as not all of your coworkers necessarily share your interests or life stage or either. It’s even harder to meet good friends if you are married because not only do you have to find someone that you connect with, you have to find someone who is married to someone that your spouse can at least tolerate spending the evening with. It can get quite complicated. 

We’ve been fortunate to meet at least one compatible couple in every city we’ve moved to. In Aberdeen we met several as well as having plenty of single friends who were totally ok with hanging out with old married couples on the weekends. And then we had a baby and things got of kind of weird. Just kidding...our single and no-kids couple friends didn't kick us out of the group and were totally tolerant and accommodating to our colicky newborn. Seriously I could not have survived without their support and how those childless friends anticipated our every need in those first few weeks of parenthood I will never understand. God bless them. Anyhoo, I've gone off on a tangent....

Unfortunately, we were uprooted when Forest was still a newborn and transferred to beautiful Northern California. Now we were faced with the task of finding not only a new friend for me, but a friend who was preferably married to a potential friend for Jonathan and who also procreated a potential friend for Forest near or around October 2013, preferably an (over)active baby boy. Tricky business. 

We’ve been crazy fortunate in our move to San Ramon that I have met several mommy friends with tots around Forest’s age, but we really hit the jackpot when I clicked instantly with a new mom in our mom group, Pinthip, who just so happened to have a busy boy just 3 weeks older than Forest. And as luck would have it she had a hubby that shared several interests with Jonathan (i.e. golfing, skiing and drinking beer) so it has been a fun match all around. 

Our first 'triple' date at the pumpkin patch.

We were thrilled when Dave and Pinthip invited us to spend a long weekend at Dave’s parents’ cabin up in Tahoe. We had been wanting to explore this area of North California and were glad to have some ‘locals’ to show us around. 

We drove up on a Thursday night after the hubbys got off of work. I was a little nervous because we’d never really driven with Forest at night before. It was a 3 hour drive from San Ramon and we were departing right around little nugget’s bedtime. He fussed for a few minutes before falling into a deep sleep. He even remained asleep during a gas stop which was pleasantly surprising.

Success!

We arrived at the cabin in Truckee at about 10 pm at which point both babies woke from their slumber. We let them play around a bit while setting up their respective sleeping spaces. I was hopeful Forest would go right back to sleep but we weren’t so lucky. It was understandable as he was in a new place and probably a bit scared and confused by this change in his routine. 

It took about an hour of intermittently reassuring and soothing him but he finally laid down and went to sleep in his pack n play. I was certain he would wake up throughout the night so I slept very fitfully. Well the joke was on me because he slept til nearly 7:30 the next morning. Jonathan barely got to tell him good morning before he and Dave were off to the slopes at Sugarbowl. 

Despite sleeping “late” Forest was still a bit cranky pants so we stayed near the house most of the day. We managed to get out to a nearby playground and hit the grocery store for essentials, but mostly let the boys play and explore the expansive backyard. 

They even found a scrap of snow! 

That night we ordered take out and then hung out in the hot tub once the babies were put to bed. We all slept much better that night! 

The next day the husbands decided to forego skiing to spend the day with us. We just did some more backyard exploring in the morning so that Forest could have his morning nap before a jam packed afternoon. 

Future heartbreakers.

Bryce (their little one) is a much more flexible sleeper and managed to take a nap in the car on the way to our first stop and stayed asleep while we ate our lunch at Dave’s parents’ condo on Donner Lake. 

Once Bryce woke up we walked down to the lakefront for some exploration and photo ops. 

Then the boys enjoyed some relaxation time and some brewskis while Pinthip and I chased our rambunctious boys up and down the halls of the condo complex. Hmmmm…it seems like the boys were having more of a vacation than us at this point:). 

I love Bryce's face in this one. He is like 'Who is this crazy kid?!?!?'

Next we headed up to the Northstar ski resort just to explore the grounds and scope out the sight for future ski trips. Jonathan and I were really impressed. If we had a zillion dollars we would surely invest in a place here! 

They had all sorts of dining and shopping options, plus live music around an ice skating rink, and at 4 o’clock they have a s’more bar around the fire pits. Plus they have sledding for the babies/toddlers and skiing for the older kids. We have already decided that Forest will be in ski school as soon as he’s old enough which at most of the resorts in Tahoe means 4 years old, though I did see that Heavenly resort offers lessons starting at 3 as part of the daycare option. It’s certainly something I will be looking into so that maybe Momma can have a bit of vacation time in the future… 

Anywhoos, Northstar was great. After scoping out the village we hitched a ride in the gondola up to the Ritz Carlton where there were more dining and drinking options. 

 After spending some time at the Ritz, we decided to head towards home for dinner. We headed to Safeway to pick up some steaks to grill and then put the boys to bed a bit early before curling up to watch a movie. 

The next morning was basically just packing up and cleaning the house pretty early to try to beat the Sunday traffic out of Tahoe. 

Jon keeping the boys occupied while the house gets cleaned. Doesn't he look cute with two babies?;)

It must have worked because we didn’t have any issue on the drive home. We were all pretty tired after basically a month of traveling and/or sickness so all 3 of us crashed hard for an afternoon nap once we got home. We had such a great time and hope that we behaved ourselves well enough to be invited back     (*cough* Forest *cough*). We are also happy to be home and hopefully healthy for a few weeks. 

Next up: we are starting to plan a trip to Yosemite and possibly Mammoth for March. Any tips for us?