Tahoe, Snow and Chorizo

What do these three things have in common? The combo makes for a FANTASTIC weekend away! We rented a house in Tahoe for the weekend with 6 other people and had a great time. We have only visited Tahoe in the summer, at Jon's grandparents' lovely home, but this time we went with San Fran friends and rented a house where there isn't a care in the world. It was a 5 BR house with a large kitchen, huge living room and a HOT TUB! I have only skied twice prior to this trip, so I was a little nervous to ski at the renowned Lake Tahoe.

The drive there was a little gnarly...we bought tire chains for the snow and had them installed once we reached Tahoe. Here is a quick video of what we were seeing - crazy!


Friday, the 7 others went skiing at Squaw Valley while I worked from the cabin. It was nice to have a full day of quiet, but I was anxious at 5:00pm for them to come "home" and to let the cocktails begin! We played games and hung out that night, then got up around 8am to Jen's fabulous oat bran banana pancakes (no joke - they were amazing) and took off for Alpine to get our ski on!


Entire ski group at Alpine

We took this photo from the top of our first run. It was a "blue" and I thought I would cry when I first saw the steep decline, but I snowplowed my way through it and ended up okay!


Top of Summit Six

Here are two views of what we were fortunate enough to enjoy the entire weekend...just breathtaking.



I finally moved beyond the snowplow after a few more tries and started to get the hang of it!



Dave was able to strut his stuff, though this is pretty mild compared to his full talent. The winters he spent skiing with his family paid off - this kid has SKILLZ!!! I like this video (0:40 long) because it gives a feel for how BIG the mountain is.



We had an absolutely fantastic weekend with Jen, Alex, Heidi, Bryan, Ali and Clayton. We are already putting a "reunion tour" on the calendar for late March! More pictures (greatly narrowed down from the 1100 we took!) can be found here.

Oh and the Chorizo? Well, that was another addition to breakfast, but didn't work out quite as great as the oat bran banana pancakes. The sausages, once cooked, turned to complete LIQUID, which was then placed in the fridge to solidify, which subsequently FROZE for the next 48 hours. Needless to say, it was GROSS to see, GROSSER to clean (thanks, Heidi!). And we still wonder why I don't cook? Hmmm....