Lake Tahoe

Sevak is going to be running the Pocatello Marathon this Saturday, and he recently asked his colleague if there are any places nearby that have high elevation--he wanted to practice running in a thin-air environment. :) His colleague told him that he has a condo in Tahoe and asked if we wanted to borrow it for the weekend. Ummm....yes! We went up last Friday and had a splendid time with the kids. Here's a small recap of some of our activities:

* Explored the condo (which is larger than our own).  We played musical beds because Simon had a hard time learning to sleep in an unfamiliar environment.  Rose just wanted to play musical beds.  She is great at sleeping in unfamiliar places--she even wants me to turn off all the lights and close the door!  Her favorite room was a small loft that had glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on the ceiling.  Pretty cool.

Balcony Pic

* Explored the "woods."  We walked around the backyard, which was basically a forest.  Rose is such a nature girl and loves climbing on rocks, looking at new plants, etc.  We also walked to a cute playground and played in its  neighboring "woods."

* Played on Commons Beach in Tahoe City:

 

A "scare-fox" (presumably to scare the ducks away?)

We also happened to visit Squaw Village during a special "Paws and Peaks" event.  Let's just say that the dogs outnumbered us.  And the bottles of booze.  I could feel the piercing stares of those dog owners, as if they could read into my non dog-loving soul.  I am of course exaggerating...we visited some cute little shops and won a frisbee at a toilet-paper tossing game (at the booth of some dog company...not too far from the frozen-yogurt-for-dogs booth).
 

I can't believe there weren't any dogs that walked into this picture.

Oh, here's a pic of Sevak and the kids in front of the Squaw Valley sign:

Later on in our trip we went to Squaw Village again and took a cable car to the top of the peak.  There was a hefty price tag associated with it, but we figured that we had saved so much on lodging that we could afford it.

At the top, we visited the Olympic Museum:

Rose was originally the gold medalist, but Simon fought Rose (for probably the first time in his life) and won!

My darlings also picked me a lovely bouquet of wildflowers.  Rose is really into that kind of thing.  Simon is too, for that matter.  He would pick a flower, smell it, drop it to the ground, and repeat.  Not exactly the "greenest" of activities.

 

We also discovered some bugs that made pretty cool clicking noises.  The kids are also into that kind of exploration and discovery.

We ate at a cute little poolside café before heading back down the mountain.

We asked Rose if she wanted to eat her food, but she kept telling us that she would eat it after she finished her lettuce (garnish).  Ummm...what?  This is the same day that Simon refused to eat the marshmallows in his marshmallow cereal.  Weirder than weird.

And here's a nice pic of us at the top:

Oh look, there's a dog.