The Whole World In Our Hands...: Tahoe Family Vacation/First Out of State Trip!

We spent a week up in Tahoe with Aaron's parents and Sis and Harley. It was such a nice, relxing week and it was Aaden's first time visiting another state - ok, so it was just across the Stateline into Nevada but still...

So Sunday July 24th we got packed up and hit the road at about 1pm. Packing for an almost one year old is no easy task. I'm a horrible packer as it is and having to pack all the stuff for Aaden too made me worried that we would have to tie stuff to the top of the Pilot! But alas, it all fit! The drive up was ok - although I wasn't feeling well from celebrating with Alec and Nicole the night before at Miyako's with too much sake. Aaden did better on the drive than I did! We got into Tahoe around 6pm and went to our place to meet up with Ann & Allan and Sis & Harley. We went out to dinner shortly after that at a place called 'The Brewery' good food, good beer, slow service (they were really busy though).

The condo we stayed at in Zephyr Cove was really nice and comfortable. It was a great place to relax.  It was pretty much like a 3 bedroom apartment maybe about 1000 sq feet and had all the amenities. We didn't have to worry too much about letting Aaden explore around our place - he spent all week practicing walking. I think the most he got up to was about 8 steps - it seemed like every chance he got he was up and taking steps.

We spent most of the week hangin out, playing games (Scrabble, Scattegories, Cranium), cooking and eating, going to the pool, trying different restaurants and things like that. We walked down to the beach one of the days and tried to put Aaden's feet in the water and he hated it. We figured it was either because the lake is so cold or that he doesn't like the little waves. We know he's not afraid of water in general because he loves the pool. Sis and Harley had a great time with Aaden - he was such a ham - it was hard not to enjoy him! Every morning they would take Aaden out to the patio to let him bird watch while they drank their coffee. It was really sweet and Aaden loved birdwatching. He's such an animal lover already! At one point during the trip there was a little bug crawling up his arm and instead of trying to grab it, he just watched it, followed it with his eyes while it crawled up.

About mid-week Aaron, Aaden and I went up to visit my family while they were staying in North Shore. It was only about a 40 minute drive to their place which was just past King's Beach. (Sidenote: Gam rented a place up there for everyone to stay - Wallers, Mom, Hagins', Hodges' and any others that wanted to stay. Michael and Jenny were up staying with Rich and Alexis and Justin and Caroline were staying at her family's place in North Star. Kenny, Christopher, Michael Fisher, and Cory all came up on that Friday) Anyway, that day that we visited we went to lunch at a great little place on the water called Captain Jon's with Gam, Mom, Aunt Kerry, Uncle Terry, Aunt Krissie and Uncle Danny. The food was awesome and so was the location - and of course the company was too. Aaden loved watching the geese in the water.

One of the days we went to a great little sports bar called Mo's Place to watch the Giants game. We were really excited at first because we were the only people there and they had the game on all of their tv's. Well - not too long after we arrived so did the midgets. They had a wrestling ring set up and there was midget wrestling taking place there that night. Fine and dandy except they decided to practice while we were there and they had really really loud clap boards set up under the ring so everytime they would body slam each other a big loud "boom" would echo through the place. Aaden hated it. It totally freaked him out. We hated it too - but the upside - the food was good, the Giants won and and bunch of other Giants fans had come in to cheer them on (the Giants, not the midgets).

On Friday we went to Riva Grill in South Shore for lunch with Aaron's family. All I can say is YUM! Aaron and I have been there before and we really wanted to go back. Thank god everyone else liked it too because we had been raving about it all week.  That will definitely be a place we hit up every time we go back.  Later that evening we went on the Catamaran cruise on the lake (AKA booze cruise)- which we had gone on in 2008. We met all of my family there and all enjoyed the nice ride.  Rum Runners (their specialty drink) and all other drinks were half off!

On Saturday we packed up ALL of our crap and headed to North Shore to spend one night with my family. That was a lot of fun. Almost our whole family was there - minus Nat and Aaron (Hodges). We BBQ'd and Aaden hung out in the hot tub with everyone - it was a good time. Aaron went to the casino that night with some of my family and won $100 - Uncle Terry won $1200!  That would have been nice to come home with but I'll take $100 anyday!

Here are pics from our trip!

First day - visiting the beach. Snow-capped mountains in the background.

It was still about 85 degrees the whole trip though