After Christmas, we spent the rest of winter going back and forth between San Francisco and Tahoe. We decided to get season passes for Squaw Valley this year - to try something new, and give the kids a chance to ski with school friends, since we know a handful of families who got the same pass. The kids are still into skiing, and have reached an age and skill set where they aren't exhausted after 2 runs, so we spent a lot of time on the mountain.
Winter Break gave us the first week of January off, which is a pretty good time to go skiing. The holiday crush has gone home, and there is usually enough snow to have a decent amount of terrain open. We had mixed results with our weekend visits - we had a few days of lift closings due to bad weather, and a memorable MLK day drive when it took 2 hours to drive the 11 miles from Squaw Valley back to Truckee. But we have some gorgeous sunny days, some great powder days, and some pretty nice views of Lake Tahoe.
And we did connect with friends for skiing many times throughout the season -
Lucie riding a lift with her buddy Neko and Neko's dad, aka Coach Howie of the Gorillas)
Brennan and William get their game faces on for the first run
Lunch after a morning skiing with soccer teammates Max & Nathan
Just hanging around in the members locker room with his soccer teammates Kristof & Xander
(I briefly looked into locker rental, when it was looking like Daddy would not be skiing this season and I'd be managing kids and gear solo. Now that I've seen the space, I'm fine with my decision to save $1200 and carry stuff to & from the car.)
Après-ski for the kids is generally a stop for cocoa and snacks, bugging me to go to the toy and/or pet supply store, and clowning around in Squaw Village. Proud parenting moments include:
- Lucie rushing up to me at the coffee pick up counter, waving a penguin cake pop and loudly announcing, "Look, Mommy, I'm eating his brains!"
- the kids turning the giant novelty chair into Despotic Emperor Role Play
It's important to get back to the house while there's still a bit of daylight, as we've spent all winter perfecting our sledding track in the yard.
Although what started out as the "run-away sled stop" my friend David built to prevent his 2 young boys from crashing into the trees pretty quickly evolved into a ramp. The jump claimed the lives of 2 saucer sleds and bruised some tailbones and egos.
There was a LOT of snow this winter. I thought we got a lot of snow the past 2 winters, but then THIS winter happened. Tahoe Donner reported 480 inches at the end of March, and since Squaw is staying open until July, they are still counting - right now it's 682" at 8000 feet. There's so much snow in the yard that the kids were begging to jump from the second floor deck and windows.
It's also been a great winter for turning tree wells into forts, snowball throwing, and Arctic Exploring.
Roux is also a pretty big fan of the snow-
I think they would all happily stay out there until they started losing digits to frostbite, but when it starts to get dark, I make them move the party inside. I had to get a picture of this card game, because usually "moving the party inside" means something along the lines of "play Call of Duty until you get thumb blisters".
We missed having Daddy ski with us, but his ankle wasn't ready. Other than that, it was a pretty good winter - Brennan got to get in more black diamond runs, Lucie got to hang out in the Ski Patrol hut (ask her about the Skittles and teaching the guys how to use Google Docs), we rescued a lost dog (ask either kid about Beezie), and Daddy upgraded all the hardware on the doors and in the bathrooms.
Thanks for all the snow, Tahoe - we'll be back after soccer season!
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