Tahoe 2010

Our trip to Lake Tahoe was lots of fun, even though we were only there for about 30 hours.

We checked into our hotel room and both kids immediately started jumping on the beds (an Altmiller hotel room ritual).   After we got ourselves situated, it was about time for dinner so we headed off into the local town of Truckee for some grub and excitement.  This ended up consisting of some Italian food and a trip to the local Rite Aid...not very exciting at all.  We headed back to the hotel and Jacob was super excited that we had 41 TV channels available to us in our hotel room.  Can you remember the days when you were excited about 41 TV channels?  I do.  That's because I grew up in a time before digital cable or satelite, when, to paraphrase a popular joke, you only had 4 channels to choose from, and if the President was giving a speech that night, you were outta luck.  Anyway......I was fast asleep by 9:30pm, which was a good thing since we needed to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to head out to the mountain.

After standing on numerous lines to get the boys lift tickets and ski/snowboard rentals, they were off and Gaby and I went to explore.  Since Mommy was freezing, we decided to explore the inside of the Starbucks at the resort.   We headed back outside and sat by a fire pit warming up while we waited for our friends to arrive.

Then it was time for lunch.   This consisted of me going to each of the restaurants located inside the resort, telling them I needed a table for 13 (including 4 kids and 2 highchairs), and when they finished laughing at me, I'd go on to the next restaurant.  We ended up at a Japanese/Sushi restaurant, which was actully pretty good.  So there we are, 5 Air Force members, 4 spouses, and 4 kids all crammed into a large table in the restaurant.  But there were only 2 spilled drinks (one of which was by Gaby who then cried for about 10 solid minutes afterward), so it was a pretty successful lunch.

After lunch the guys headed on back to the slopes and the rest of decided it would be fun to take the kids ice skating.  Since I had never been on ice skates before, I thought this sounded like a fun idea.   And it was....even though neither Gaby nor I could let go of the walls while we "skated" around the rink.  (P.S. my ankles are killing me.....who knew that ice skates would be so heavy?)

After ice skating we sat down on some sofas located up on the empty stage next to the ice rink.  Only it wasn't empty for long.  A local singer/songwriter (who was EXCELLENT by the way) started to setup her keyboard, guitar and amps and told us we could stay sitting there.  Since all of the adults were exhausted and sore (note the ankle comment above), we figured that not moving from the comfy sofas sounded good.  All of a sudden, Gaby gets up from her seat, walks out to the front of the stage and started dancing to the music.  The crowd went wild, as did the singer, so Gaby remained on stage and danced through the rest of her set.  (I have video of this already posted on Facebook.)  It was great!

By this time, the slopes were closing and it was time to go home.  We stopped for a quick bite at the always kid-friendly Denny's, and headed home.

New Years Fun!

Remember the days when New Year's Eve was a big event?  There were parties, friends, crowds, etc?  The night didn't stop until 7am the next morning?  Yeah, me neither.  But I always thought that sounded like fun.  The reality for me was that trying to stay awake until midnight is a big event of it's own. 

Here's how we rang in 2010:

During the day, we hung around the house playing with Christmakah presents and then headed to my mom's house for dinner (tacos, which were very good).  We headed back home around 7pm.  Both kids had decided earlier in the day that they both wanted to stay up until midnight.  Gaby was the first to cave at around 8:30pm (an hour past her normal bedtime).   At 11pm, Jacob stopped playing with his toys, looked up at Jay and announced that he also needed to go bed. 

Now, I know what you're thinking....both kids are now in bed, allowing Jay and I to ring in the new year together.  The only problem with that was Jay was asleep at 11:45pm and I was driftng off to sleep along side him.  When I saw the clock said 11:55pm and realizing that I almost missed my New Year's kiss, I began subtley waking Jay up (aka poking him until he regained conciousness).  At 11:59pm, with both of us now fully awake, we waited for the clock to turn midnight.   At the stroke of midnight, as our neighbors shot off illegal fireworks and banged pots and pans together right outside our window (so loudly that I was sure they'd wake the kids up and I wanted to kill them - justifiable homicide if you ask me), Jay looked deep into my eyes and told me that becuase I poked him awake (ok, maybe I wasn't so subtle) he was going to make me wait until 12:01am for my kiss.  And he did.  But I did get a great kiss at 12:01....and we were both asleep by 12:05am.  :)

I'm sure 2010 will turn out to be a great year.....it can't be much worse than 2009 was.  Here's hoping your 2010 turns out to be everything you hope it to be.