To celebrate the new year, and spend a little family time, we took our annual trip up to Lake Tahoe. This year we were also lucky enough to have mom and Erin join us!
The trip started with a 5 hour drive up to Bishop, which is half way to Tahoe, on New Years Eve. Dylan did great in the car. He loved looking at all the trucks and would scream "tra" whenever he saw one, which was A LOT! He also didn't quite understand that you can't watch movies in the car. He kept asking to watch the "elephant" the whole trip. (He's been completely obsessed with the movie "Horton Hears a Who" since Christmas.) So the entire car ride was full of "tra, tra, tra... mommy elephant, elephant ELEPHANT!"
We rolled into the lovely Bishop Comfort Inn (the nicest hotel in town) around 8PM on New Years Eve. I grabbed a pizza and a bottle of champagne for a fancy New Years celebration at our fancy hotel. I also ran into K-mart, the only "superstore" in Bishop, to see if I could buy the "elephant"... no luck. We were exhausted so we didn't even stay up to watch the ball drop. Just stuffed ourselves with pizza and had a glass of a champagne out the little, plastic hotel cups. It's sounds kinda bad... but it was actually kinda a fun family New Years Eve! :)
Day 2: Blizzard! I don't know what it is. How do we always have the biggest snowstorm of the year the day we are driving to Tahoe??? This year was no different. We drove through heavy snow all the way to Reno. Dylan would look out the window and say "snow, snow, SNOW!" (There weren't very many trucks to look at this day.) Despite the snow, we were still able to pick up mom and Erin at the airport on time. So we all rolled up the mountain, without one square inch free in the car. We arrived safe and sound mid-afternoon.
Day 3: The Ritz Carlton. After a long day of traveling we had a great lunch at the Ritz. It was so beautiful and relaxing.
Day 4: Sledding. Dustin wanted to take Dylan sledding so bad, so he found the only place in Tahoe that would allow kids under two to go tubing (doesn't really sound safe does it?). So off we went. Dylan... not a fan. He cried the whole time. He hated putting on his snowsuit. He hated sledding. He hated snow. He hated everything... but the lodge. Luckily Grammy could keep him in the lodge while Erin, Dustin and I had some fun tubing.
Day 5-7: Skiing & Sick Baby. Unfortunately, Dylan got a really bad cold and spent most of the trip at the condo with Grammy. :-( Does it make us bad parents that we kept skiing?? If it helps, we only did 1/2 days of skiing so we could be with him and give Grammy a break. On Thursday Dylan's fever went up to 103. So I called our doctor in San Diego who recommended we go to the E:R so off we went. Not the best way to spend a vacation, but glad to hear it wasn't anything serious. Just a bad virus that we would have to ride out. Poor Dylan.
Day 8: Feeling Better. Dylan started feeling better towards the end of the trip and we all went down to the park at Kings Beach so he could get some fresh air. It was a great day and we got some really nice pictures!
Day 9: Headed Home... in Broken Car. Sometime while we were in Tahoe the Volvo broke. It was still "drivable"... but barely. It felt like we were riding a broken lawnmower the whole time. It especially didn't like hills... or going under 60. We called the Volvo dealership in San Diego and they said to stop driving if the 'Check Engine' light started flashing. It was ok if the light was on, but flashing was very VERY bad. Well... it came on. And then started flashing. Off and on the whole trip. It was nerve wracking! But we finally made it home- drove all 10 hours in 1 day. San Diego has never looked so good. Dylan, the Super Baby, was a champ.
Despite being a bit stressful at times, we had a great trip! :)
