Truckee, CA Vacation: Days 1 & 2

A while back, one of my besties, Stephanie, invited us to come out and stay with them in Truckee, CA over New Years.  The kids had been asking to go skiing for a while, so we jumped at the chance!  Instead of telling them right away though, we decided to make it a Christmas present from us and wait and tell them then.  The kids were super excited once they found out and I couldn't wait!

We left bright and early the Sunday after Christmas. . .6:15 am.  We flew into Reno, but had to make 1 stop and change planes in San Diego.  We arrived in Reno around 10:30 CA time and after grabbing our luggage, drove 30 min. or so over to Stephanie and Luke's in Truckee.
 

I had hoped the kids would sleep on the first leg, but about 45 min. into the flight, they turned the lights on to do drink service.  And with that, all hopes of sleeping went out the window.

Good thing SWA offers free checked bags!  We had 5 suitcases + 1 car seat bag.  

There was a little bit of snow at the house and lots of open land with huge pine trees.  Evan had an absolute blast exploring!!  After Luke cooked lunch, we headed over to the clubhouse they get access to and we spent some time catching up.  The kids went to the kids club and me, Shawn, Steph and Luke sat in the restaurant.  When the kids were done in the kids club, they took a dip in the hot tub before we all headed back to the house to have dinner.  It was a relaxing way to start our vacation!

That's Northstar in the back.  You can see some of the ski runs.

Luckily after staying up late on Sunday night, we had all adjusted to CA time by Monday morning.  We took our time getting ready that morning and then headed to Northstar early afternoon to let the kids ice skate and pick up our lift tickets for later in the week.  It was cold this day, so we put the kids in their snow gear. 

After spending a couple hours up at Northstar, we drove back to get ready for the New Year's Eve party that night.   The clubhouse provides babysitting for the kids on NYE, so we dropped them off and then took the bus back to Northstar.   Steph and Luke get access to the Alpine Club at Northstar and each year they throw a NYE party for it's members.  This year's theme was a beach party.  That's pretty tricky when it's 9 degrees outside and there's snow on the ground.  In the end Steph and I decided that we would wear sundresses to match the theme, but we needed to wear uggs in order to keep our feet warm.  Lots of other people had the exact same idea.  I'm definitely glad we went this route since they had fireworks outside and I don't think I would have been able to stand outside in sandals. 

The club went all out with the beach decor!  They had sand all over the floor, shells on the tables and all the food was beach themed.  We had a great time, but by 10:30 or so, the time change and getting up super early the previous day were starting to catch up to us.  Since we missed the early bus, we opted for an uber and picked the kids up around 11:30.  We made it back to the house just in time to celebrate at midnight with the kids.