Last month we took a family trip to Tahoe to ski. This is becoming somewhat of a tradition, as there is a "Ski-M-E" (bad play on "CME") conference there every February and we get discounted rates for the room and the lift tickets. We went in February of 2016 and had a great time, skipped last year in favor of a snowy trip to Yosemite, and this year we were back again. Some of you may remember this cool character from our trip in 2016:
The ride up was uneventful. We did stop in Rocklin to supercharge, affording opportunities to impersonate Daddy. It turns out the mirrors on this lil tiny Tesla fold in just like the ones on the big car. Just like his pop, Wesley was very interested in folding the mirrors in to make sure he didn't scratch up the paint job.
Once we got there, we were immediately overwhelmed with things to do. The conference put on meals where all of the physicians and their families could gather. We stayed busy catching up with old friends from Santa Rosa and saying hi to our current colleagues in San Francisco. Wessy stayed busy grabbing other peoples' desserts and running amok in the "ballroom."
The next day, we ventured out into the snow. Being as we were veterans of this conference, we knew that the thing to do was to have childcare arranged ahead of time. Wessy is in the doughnut hole of being big enough to be unruly and to need constant supervision, but not yet old enough for ski school or other day camp-type activities. Thus, we booked a sitter.
The sitter has a three year old son of her own, so she knew the score. She brought a sled for Wessy to play with and patiently trundled him around on it. She also brought puzzles and books and patiently let him ask the same questions again and again. He quickly realized that she did not speak Spanish, so he dusted off his Mexican-accented English and they seemed to understand each other just fine.
This year, Wessy actually seemed to enjoy playing in the snow. In previous years (well okay, last year), we kind of just let him toddle around and touch the snow, and that was enough. This year he actually made snowballs and enjoyed sledding. He did seem to have some trouble walking in the snow, though. Periodically he would fall straight into the snow and get snow on his face. This would lead to a sudden, intense crying fit that would subside within fifteen seconds, only to recur shortly thereafter the next time he fell down.
The precipitation this year has been spotty, so the first day two days there was not much snow. Still enough to get out and putter in the sled though:
On Sunday evening, though, a decent snowstorm came through and we got 4-5 inches of powder. Not only was this delightful from a sledding perspective, it was great skiing. Several weeks prior, we had randomly decided to stay on Monday, so we really lucked out and got a powder day where most people had already headed back to work. The slopes were almost empty!
 |
| shreddin' the freshies |
The other fun thing about this ski trip was that the Winter Olympics were kicking off. Sometimes it's hard to connect with the Winter Olympics--a lot of the sports are very niche and dominated by a narrow slice of people who have the means to access ski slopes, private ice skating lessons, etc, but the fact that we were at Squaw Valley (site of the 1960 Winter Olympics) and playing in the snow made it seem much more relevant. When we got off the slopes, we enjoyed a quick hot tub soak, a glass of wine and then a long lounge in front of the TV eating snacks and watching the Olympics. I really can't think of many things that are more enjoyable.
Here you see "the guys" hitting the "hot tub" in our room:
 |
| It's all about the apres ski! |
No comments:
Post a Comment