Tahoe, Part I

We just got home from a completely wonderful trip to Tahoe to visit Alex, Paige and their three kiddos.  It felt much more like May than February, with no snow and temperatures near 60.  In a little less than three days, we managed to fit in everything we wanted to do and the very best part of it all was spending such nice time with family.

We hadn't seen their little family--or the lake--since this past summer when Ambrose was still a little mush, Marie was far from talking, and I was in a horrible haze of morning sickness.   So this was a much-needed get-together.

Marie had been eagerly anticipating this trip since we planned it.  Every day she would talk about going to Lake Tahoe, going on an airplane and wearing Evey's boots.  When the time came to actually go, she wasn't let down a bit.  We ended up flying a pretty small prop plane down there, so the airport experience was much more fun than usual.  We got to walk outside to the plane, see it up-close and climb up the stairs into it.  It was exactly like one of her recent favorite books about airplanes, so she was very excited about it all.

And the visit was wonderful for her! She had SO MUCH FUN with her cousins.  She has really gotten to a social age now, when she likes to really play with other kids and communicate with them on her own.  We hadn't seen her doing much of that until this trip but she really blossomed in that regard while we were there.  She and Evey were so ridiculously cute together (see Tahoe, Part II for super cute pictures of them) and became thick as thieves.  Xavier was the absolute sweetest big cousin to her, and she loved watching baby Ambrose and trying to play with him.  It was such a joy to see her bond with her cousins.

She also got to throw a million rocks into the lake (which, of course, wasn't enough), go sledding for the first time, play in the snow at the mountain (she was particularly excited to "throw snow") and participate in Xavier's ice cream party. The rest of the gang got a little skiing in, despite the bad snow, and because of the gorgeous weather, we spent a good amount of time down at the beach.  And Paige and I got lots of time to chat, which is so nice for us both!  She always has some great advice and good friendship to share.

It was a relaxed, fun visit and very hard to say goodbye.