The Salvateenies: Tahoe 2012

Joe and I have a tradition of going up to Tahoe during the All Star Break - the only time during the summer he is guaranteed to have four straight days without baseball games to cover. I have been up to Tahoe every year of my life, except for 2010 when my belly full of babies suggested that a 3.5 hour car trip might not be the wisest choice.

Last year, we took the Teenies for the first time, and this is the first year they've been mobile in the mountains. As soon as we got to the cabin, they went wild, enjoying the wide open kitchen and trying to tap dance on the linoleum (the kitchen is off limits at home).

Then they went through the cabin libraries to see what there was to read:

Then Caroline met the bear statue (or, as she calls him, "B!") and they became instant friends

and had many long conversations.

The first day up there, we lay low - it was VERY hot (for Tahoe, and for us), in the low 90s most of the time. We had appointments with a plumber and the cable company to come out and check on things and we amused the children with cabin games and DVDs until it was time to watch the All Star Game.

The sleeping arrangements at the cabin were pretty involved. Since the kids aren't sleeping in real beds yet, and don't do terribly well with stairs, we elected not to open up the two upstairs bedrooms. This left the one downstairs bedroom, filled with a king sized bed, the bathroom and the living room/dining room/kitchen. We brought three play pens with us for sleeping (last year we brought two - Caroline and Daniel didn't enjoy sleeping together and she ended up sleeping in our bed most of the week) and so I got to set them up each night just before bedtime and then break them down again the next morning. For nap time we put two of them in the bedroom (it's darker and Joe and I were still able to move around) and made the boys nap together.

The first night did not go terribly well. I lined them up with Caroline at one end, close to the piano, then Max in the middle, and Daniel on the end. They all cried for a bit after lights out, but then Max and Caroline seemed to settle down and Daniel continued to cry, off and on, for the next half hour. I had forgotten to close the shade in the kitchen all the way, so they woke up around 6am (3 hours earlier than normal) when light broke through and beamed through to them. We could hear them talking, crying, and playing for the next hour and a half, then just Daniel crying. I suspect he felt left out on the end, with Max and Caroline playing on the other side. They were up again at 8:15 and talking and playing. When I got out of bed a little before nine, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, then was going to peek my head outside to quickly check something in the back yard when I heard Joe, who was sitting in bed looking through the door to the hall. He called, "Edith! Look!" and I spun around to find Caroline toddling down the hall toward me. Apparently she wriggled out of her swaddle then pulled herself out of the playpen and, using either the piano or a chair, used her amazing climbing skill to lower herself to the ground.

The next night, I moved her "crib" further away from the piano and chair, put Daniel in the middle playpen, and I closed the shade. They slept longer (yay!) and when Joe and I got up, there was nobody underfoot. When I got into the bathroom, Joe called, "Um, Edith, come look at this." I walked into the living room to find that Caroline had instead climbed into Daniel's crib and the two of them were standing next to each other grinning from ear to ear.

On Wednesday, we ventured out to the beach. Joe's niece, Andrea, joined us with her two daughters, and we went to Pope Beach. It now costs $7 to drive in and park, but the improvements to the beach (paved paths from the parking lot, upgraded picnic tables and benches, new bathrooms) made it a really nice destination. We had a TON of sand toys we've collected from friends (thanks, Margene and Leah!) and spread them all out on the sand. The kids had little swim shoes to wear with their suits so they wouldn't have to worry about the hot sand or the water but when a wave lapped some grains of sand onto Caroline's shoes, she got quite unhappy, squealing, "Mommy! Shoes messy! Yuck!"

Max enjoyed chasing the Canada geese we saw (he and Caroline yelled, "Shoo! Shoo! go 'way!" at them) and running off to play with everyone else's toys on the beach. He was especially fond of a soccer ball a boy next to us had, which accounts for the dirt smudged on his cheek in so many of these pictures.

Daniel spent a good chunk of time hanging out with Andrea at the edge of the water and checking out the bikini-clad twenty-somethings a bit up the beach.

That night, we braved dinner "out". We went to Pasarretti's Italian restaurant - we called ahead to be sure they could accommodate two adults and three high chairs, and when we got there, the table was all set up and waiting for us. Max couldn't decide if he was more excited about the crayons or the loaf of bread we got. I tried to explain the bread was for everyone to share, but he wouldn't listen.

We ordered a couple of kids' pizzas and some chicken strips for them and they were absorbed enough with their food (and their fancy styrofoam straw cups) that we were actually able to make it through our meals without too many interruptions.

In fact, everything went so well, we made the mistake of thinking we could stay for dessert. I got some vanilla gelato for the kids and a chocolate lava cake for myself, though I ended up sharing at least half of it. Daniel wiped stuff across his shirt, Max dribbled and rubbed chocolate and ice cream all over his shirt AND shorts, and Caroline dropped ice cream right down her dress - on the inside! It was definitely call for ANOTHER bath when they got home (they'd already had one after the beach!)

We had toyed with the idea of going home a day early because it was so hot, but they had so much fun at the beach that we decided to stay the whole week. We made arrangements with our friends Paulette and Denny to met them, and their two (grown) grandchildren at the beach the next day. It was definitely a relief to have additional adults to watch over the Teenies both times we went, though they weren't really that adventurous. It seemed a lot hotter at the beach on Thursday, and the kids didn't want to spend any time in the water, so we huddled under the totally cool beach tent I brought and they played with water toys and ate grapes and cookies.

One of the traditions of Tahoe is the height measurement. The downstairs bedroom door frame charts my height and my brother's height through our childhoods, as well as the occasional entry of other family members who came to visit. We measured Caroline on my side of the door.

The entry there marked "Caroline 7/12" shows that she, at 22 months old is about an inch shorter than I was in July of 1975, when I was 21 months. This seems to line up with the doctor's prediction that she will be around 5'1" (I am 5'5"). The boys were predicted to be about 5'6", so I was interested to see how they lined up with my brother. Max measured a bit taller than Daniel, and they were both a bit above where my brother came in in July of 1978, when he was three months older than they are now. So, who knows, they might even surpass that 5 and a half foot mark.

Throughout the week, the boys warmed up to the wooden bear and joined Caroline in talking to him, playing with him, and sharing their cookies and water.