Northstar Tahoe weekend

For my birthday, Jude took me up to Tahoe for the weekend. We haven't been away just the two of us for a really long time- I think the last time was our 2 night cruise for Jude's graduation almost 4 years ago, and that was probably the only time since we've been married. I was nervous to leave the kids, but I knew Jamie could handle it, and turns out they had a fabulous time with her.

I decided to ski instead of snowboard because I never got good enough to like snowboarding, but I hadn't been skiing in almost 20 years! I did alright, I guess, until I landed on my face in the park the second to last run on Saturday. Other than that, it was a great weekend. After snowboarding on Friday in the pouring rain we came back to the Ritz and hung out in the hot tub in the pouring rain and sleet ( it didn't turn to snow until the next morning). Then we had massages in the hotel spa. We took the gondola from the hotel to the village where we ate dinner at Mikuni--so yummy! The village is so cute, but we couldn't really enjoy it since it was raining so hard. We were wet all day!

Saturday we woke up to a foot and a half of snow and skied again. I was pretty worn out so I came back and hung out in the hotel for a little while and then went back out in the afternoon. It was so awesome staying right there on the mountain. We could ski right up to the hotel where my friendly Australian mountain concierge was waiting for me with a bottle of water and help with my ski boots. Nice! After more skiing (and my face plant) we took the gondola down to the village for dinner at the Chocolate Bar. We got stuck on the gondola for 30 minutes. It was so cold! They were so nice though and met us at the bottom (after they finally got it working) with free lift tickets for our troubles. I guess it was worth it. We were so cold by then that we really didn't stay and hang out in the village. We ate dinner and headed home. It was such a fun weekend.

Grandma for Thanksgiving

We never do anything fun when my mom comes. I guess we are always just happy hanging around enjoying each others company, but this time I was determined to take her somewhere. We live in such an awesome place with so many things close by and she needed to see some of it so we took her to Stinson Beach and Muir Woods and of course the beautiful Muir Beach lookout point. It was super fun. We always like an excuse to head to the coast! It was supposed to be 70 and sunny and ended up more like 55 and cloudy so not ideal weather for the beach, but we still had a great time.

Here is Lane throwing a perfect spiral with the football. I swear this kid is awesome. Seriously he can throw a football better than Jude. Maybe every 5 year old can do that, I don't know, but we think he's amazing.

with Grandma at the Muir Beach lookout. So pretty!

Muir Woods and the giant redwoods

inside a tree

Grandma was here for Ivy's birthday, too. She has been asking for an itouch for a year now. so we finally caved. She wrote out a contract before her birthday saying that IF she were to get an itouch for her birthday that she promises to clean her room every time she is asked and that if she doesn't clean her room her parents can take away her itouch for as long as her parents decide to do so. Then she signed the bottom (on the line that had her name printed under it). She was so happy when she opened it, she started crying and kept saying, " thank you so much. thank you so much!" through her tears. It was really sweet.