Ski Vacation with Jeff’s Family from Feb 23-26, 2017

We arrived Rockridge on Feb 19 and spent some quality time with Benjy and Lucy.  In the afternoon of Feb 19, Jeff and Jennifer took the opportunity of having some free time and went over Toyota dealership to shop around for a bigger car.   And they found a Highlander and brought it.  It was a large size of car they have been shopping around for quite a while.  They found a good one and made executive decision on the spot and bought it.  It was the car we drove together to Tahoe Donner area.  It was a nice car with comfortable ride and even a video player for playing the movie on the road.  BTW, video player is the main feature of this car as far as the kids concerned.

Jeff and Jennifer rented a beautiful house near Truckee which is located right next the Donna Lake with beautiful view from each room of the house facing south.  When we got there, there was a lot of snowfall in the past few days and we had a beautiful snow scenery.   

The first thing we did was getting some lunch in a local restaurant(Marty's Cafe) in Truckee.  When we parked our car, it was snowing heavily.  From the parking lot to the restaurant is about 2 blocks.  Walking on the snow, playing the snow, it took Benjy and Lucy about 20 minutes to complete the walk. They were so excited about the snow, and they did even notice the below zero temperature.  

The restaurant sever wonderful food with great taste and great portion.  We all enjoyed very much.

On our way to the rental house, it was still snow heavily.  The snowy scenery was great.  The only set back was that the road leading to the house is uphill with icing condition when we went there and we did have a minor difficult of driving uphill on the icing road.  We skipped a little bit and had some minor bump to the new car.  Therefore we had to put on the tire chain quickly and then we were able to drive up to the house.

It was still earlier in the afternoon and we had some time playing around the snow piles just outside the house.  This was the first time seeing snow for Benjy and Lucy.  They were so excited by stepping into the snow,  building snow fortress, and doing snow ball fight.  

The 2nd day, we took easy and had a enjoyable breakfast, Then we drove to the nearby Tahoe Donner Ski Resort to do some ski.  It was the first time for both kids, we were not sure if Lucy would be up to trying to ski.  Therefore Jeff and Jennifer took Benjy to try the snowboard.  Fei, Tony and Lucy were just try to play the snow around the base area.  Benjy was very brave and willing to try.  With Jeff’s help, it did not take to long for them to get up the Snowbird Chairlift and tried his first even green run down from the Snowbird Trail. It took them about an hour to get down,  But Benjy had significant improvement.  With his willingness, Jeff and Jennifer signed him up for the afternoon snowboard school.  

We did have chance to play sliding near the base area with Lucy.  However, some ski patrol told us that area is not for sliding, so we had to quite and just play with the snow pile.   

In the evening, we had a mini celebration for both Jeff and Lucy's birthday. 

On the next day, Jeff and Jennifer decided to let Lucy try the ski.   Jeff took Benjy to continue on the snowboard.  Jennifer took Lucy up to the Snowbird Chairlift and ski down the Snowbird trail with holding Lucy in front of her and let Lucy holding on the pole. Lucy shown a lot of interesting to the downhill ski.  

In the afternoon, Benjy went to another snowboard school. Jennifer gave Lucy company to play the snow and it allowed Jeff, Fei and Tony to do some runs.  After Benjy’s school, he want to try the Snowbird Trail again with Jeff.  This time he was totally got it.  He did quite a few time of long snowboarding with fall.  The longest one he did was 59 seconds.  It was just wonderful.

The next day, we went to the tubing park and did some tubing and sliding. Both Benjy and Lucy handled tubing and sliding just like a pro. 

Then we had lunch in Tuckee and then drove home before the snow storm hitting the area in the late afternoon.  We got home around 5PM and went to Japanese restaurant to celebrate this wonderful vacation and the great achievement of both kids.