Last Ski Trip

We just got back from Lake Tahoe, or as Aidan wrote about it in his writing journal at school, "Licktohow".

It was a terrific trip, marking the perfect ending to an awesome season of learning how to ski. On the day after Christmas, just a bit over 3 months ago, I thought I was going to die on the slopes. Zoe had refused to go to her ski school, and I was ready to call it quits. Three trips later, Zoe was skiing on her own, down the intermediate slopes, carefully following MY trail. My beautifully curved out S turns. (Hubby skied behind us, and picked her up when she fell over.) Aidan, of course, became a pro at skiing as fast as possible, in as straight of line as possible. (Although he did acknowledge that he probably ought to work on his parallel turns.) We skied all day, with a lunch break between, and basically stayed until the lifts closed! I could not have possibly done this without Hubby- the ever patient companion.

I have to recommend skiing to all you parents out there. It is a great way to hang out with your kids without being driven insane. There is stuff to do, challenges to overcome, fun to be had, and at the end of the day, the kids are exhausted and they always go off to bed early. (They also always eat well, because they are simply, starving.) That then, leaves a perfect opportunity to hang out with your spouse in the evening, without the distraction of household chores, work related stuff, and all-things-that-suck-up-time. (Like blogging.)

We have also stayed at 3 different vacation homes, found through a vacation rental website. It is very intriguing to stay at other people's houses, to say the least.

Our first was Quincy's condo. Her condo was a ski-in-out place at Squaw, and it was a beautiful condo. It was cozy, clean, bright, and void of family pictures. There were, however, hand printed directions of how to use her stuff all around the house, which we appreciated. Her linens matched, as were her towels. She had All-Clad pans there(!), and she even left a bottle of wine for us.

The second house belonged to Tim. It was very spacious, and our kids enjoyed spying on their family vacation pictures. We brought our own linens, I illegally drank a bottle of sparkling water, and it was fine.

The third house, belonged to Dave. OMG. It was awful. AWFUL. While it was ski-in-out, (so I can't complain about the location), good grief, it was terrible. They left WOODEN boards outside the windows (to shield the windows from snow?!) and also, to keep the condo like a CAVE. Dave also owned a lot of stuff. Like a Christmas wreath on the front door. (Dude, it is APRIL!) He must be some kind of lamp collector, because there were so many, yet only a few worked. A dining chair was missing a leg, while there were lawn chairs in the middle of the living room. The heaters stopped working on our last day. And the wifi, apparently, was knocked out during a storm, weeks ago, and never got fixed. Even the kids said this condo was terrible. It was a good thing that there was a washer/dryer combo there, because I washed all the mats for him. Hubby said we left the condo in better shape than how we found it. (If you are going to Tahoe Donner, let me know, and I will help you to avoid this hole.)

I must become a better skier to go back to Squaw, so I can stay at Quincy's again.