After flying back from Hong Kong on New Year’s Day, we spent time with Kristina’s family in San Diego. We also bought a car that would be good in the snow.
We drove up to the Bay Area and visited Pete’s family.
We had a fun open house party at Cynthia and Humberto’s where we were able to catch up with friends. Here are some polaroids from the party.
We next pulled some boxes out of storage that included things like kitchen essentials and skiing gear. All the boxes barely fit in the car, but we made it up to our ski lease home in Truckee.
The house we are renting is perfect for us. We spend most of our time in the great room, which includes kitchen, living and dining rooms.
Pete has been busy in the kitchen.
He made several batches of kimchee, which is a Korean spicy, fermented pickle.
He made Vietnamese pho, a beef broth noodle soup that was delicious.
We had enjoyed a few dinners at a Thai fusion restaurant in Ubud, Indonesia, so he recreated the beef with peppers, ginger and basil stir fry.
And he made coconut milk curry pasta with green beans and mint. Both were tasty and pretty close to what we had eaten at The Melting Wok.
He cooked Korean kimchee stew, which was spicy and delicious. Shown with the stew are kimcheed perilla leaves (known as shiso in Japan), and a bean sprout salad.
We shared these dishes with family members and friends who came up to visit us. Here Kristina is lighting birthday candles for Emilio who is eight. She made chocolate cupcakes to celebrate.
Emilio and his brother Julian (age 10) get the prize for staying with us the longest. They skied 17 days! Pete would often lead the boys down adventurous routes, and they all had a great time.
After a day of skiing, the boys worked on a toboggan run. They enlisted the help of anyone who was up here too. Shown behind Julian is his dad Humberto.
Sledding is fun!
Julian and Emilio were good helpers around the house. Here is a photo of Emilio putting bottle cap lids onto a fresh batch of kombucha.
This is Cynthia (Julian and Emilio’s mom), her boys and Kristina at Alpine Meadows. We all had season passes so that we could ski as many days as possible!
Here is Pete skiing. His Dad taught him to ski when he was three, and loves it! It has been Pete's dream to be a ski bum for a season – and he feels happy that he did it this year!
Did you know that it was the 1960 winter Olympics that were held at the Squaw Valley ski resort?
This is Cynthia is skiing at Squaw. Cynthia traveled with us for three weeks in Asia, and we always enjoy spending time with her. She visited us five times in Tahoe.
Cynthia is great at puzzles and she did a lot of this Vancouver puzzle.
Pete’s sister Csilla, and her sons Sacha (left) and Erich, also came up to snowboard/ski and stay with us.
Erich was in charge of squeezing limes.
Unfortunately while skiing Csilla crashed and hit her head. She got good care from Squaw ski patrol and in this photo is waiting to be checked out by the emergency room doctor. Luckily she did not have a concussion.
Csilla’s crash prompted us to buy helmets.
During our first few weeks up here there wasn’t a lot of snow. You can see the bare patches in this photo at Alpine Meadows ski resort.
The downhill resorts had to make snow with machines like this one that blows water and air to make snow.
We still had fun down hill skiing, even when the resorts had only a few runs open.
Kristina doesn’t know this man, but she liked that he was wearing a kilt while skiing and asked to take a picture with him.
Then we got our first big snow storm! Overnight it felt like the season had changed to winter, and Royal Gorge cross country ski resort reopened.
Our friend Mya came to visit, and fell in love with cross country skiing after trying it with us.
Our friend Ken (who joined us in Japan for a cycling adventure) came up with his girlfriend Jennifer. They both did great at cross country skiing.
Jennifer helped us finish this challenging puzzle of New York City.
We bought cross country skating gear and have been skiing 21 times at Royal Gorge so far. Kristina especially loves it!
We typically bring a lunch and ski for about 3 hours. Here’s Pete at a prime picnic spot. It’s called Lola’s Lookout, and is at about 7,500 feet elevation. The views from here are great!
Behind us is the map of Royal Gorge, which is the largest cross country ski resort in North America. When all the trails are open, they offer 160 miles for skiing.
Here Pete is making a rock sculpture at Lola’s Lookout.
We can usually go about 15 miles a day. It’s a great workout and is a lovely way to spend time outdoors.
Skiing down hill can be challenging with cross country skis. We thought this sign was funny. (We didn’t need to take off our skis, but we did make sure to control our speed as we went down this steep descent.)
Cross country skating is done on a groomed track. The snow bank on the left was sparkling in the sun.
Royal Gorge resort was almost sold to a developer last year, but instead was purchased by the Trust for Public Land and is now protected from development.
Here we are celebrating our longest cross-country day: 17.5 miles with 9,033 feet of elevation gain.
The views while skiing are incredible!
It hasn’t been a big snow year, so before a storm we often had to take off our skis and walk a bit to get to enough snow to ski again.
We take the scenic Donner Pass route to get to cross country skiing. The horizontal bands in the photo are covered train tracks.
The lake is Donner Lake. It’s still a bit low, but hopefully the snow on the way will help raise the lake level.
Our friends Michael and Michele came up for a weekend with their daughter Nora.
We had lots of fun “tubing” at Soda Springs.
Nora is eight. She would usually win the races down the hill.
Here’s Pete with our nephews Spencer and Jeremy, and our niece Abby.
They like to snowboard, and we had fun spending a few days riding with them.
We kept our eyes on Jeremy, so we didn’t get pelted with snowballs when we weren’t looking.
Here we are enjoying honey walnut cookies made by Pete’s mom, yum!
Snowboarders spend time lying in the snow, and Pete decided to join them for this shot.
We love the hot tub at our rental house! It's been the most fabulous experience on those days when it's been snowing.
We will be in Tahoe until the end of April. We may post another blog about the next month to include more skiing and also some bike riding. Then we will be traveling around the US for the rest of 2014. Once we start our road trip, we will get back to regular blog postings. Thanks for reading.
We drove up to the Bay Area and visited Pete’s family.
We had a fun open house party at Cynthia and Humberto’s where we were able to catch up with friends. Here are some polaroids from the party.
We next pulled some boxes out of storage that included things like kitchen essentials and skiing gear. All the boxes barely fit in the car, but we made it up to our ski lease home in Truckee.
The house we are renting is perfect for us. We spend most of our time in the great room, which includes kitchen, living and dining rooms.
Pete has been busy in the kitchen.
He made several batches of kimchee, which is a Korean spicy, fermented pickle.
He made Vietnamese pho, a beef broth noodle soup that was delicious.
We had enjoyed a few dinners at a Thai fusion restaurant in Ubud, Indonesia, so he recreated the beef with peppers, ginger and basil stir fry.
And he made coconut milk curry pasta with green beans and mint. Both were tasty and pretty close to what we had eaten at The Melting Wok.
He cooked Korean kimchee stew, which was spicy and delicious. Shown with the stew are kimcheed perilla leaves (known as shiso in Japan), and a bean sprout salad.
We shared these dishes with family members and friends who came up to visit us. Here Kristina is lighting birthday candles for Emilio who is eight. She made chocolate cupcakes to celebrate.
Emilio and his brother Julian (age 10) get the prize for staying with us the longest. They skied 17 days! Pete would often lead the boys down adventurous routes, and they all had a great time.
After a day of skiing, the boys worked on a toboggan run. They enlisted the help of anyone who was up here too. Shown behind Julian is his dad Humberto.
Sledding is fun!
Julian and Emilio were good helpers around the house. Here is a photo of Emilio putting bottle cap lids onto a fresh batch of kombucha.
This is Cynthia (Julian and Emilio’s mom), her boys and Kristina at Alpine Meadows. We all had season passes so that we could ski as many days as possible!
Here is Pete skiing. His Dad taught him to ski when he was three, and loves it! It has been Pete's dream to be a ski bum for a season – and he feels happy that he did it this year!
Did you know that it was the 1960 winter Olympics that were held at the Squaw Valley ski resort?
This is Cynthia is skiing at Squaw. Cynthia traveled with us for three weeks in Asia, and we always enjoy spending time with her. She visited us five times in Tahoe.
Cynthia is great at puzzles and she did a lot of this Vancouver puzzle.
Pete’s sister Csilla, and her sons Sacha (left) and Erich, also came up to snowboard/ski and stay with us.
Erich was in charge of squeezing limes.
Unfortunately while skiing Csilla crashed and hit her head. She got good care from Squaw ski patrol and in this photo is waiting to be checked out by the emergency room doctor. Luckily she did not have a concussion.
Csilla’s crash prompted us to buy helmets.
During our first few weeks up here there wasn’t a lot of snow. You can see the bare patches in this photo at Alpine Meadows ski resort.
The downhill resorts had to make snow with machines like this one that blows water and air to make snow.
We still had fun down hill skiing, even when the resorts had only a few runs open.
Kristina doesn’t know this man, but she liked that he was wearing a kilt while skiing and asked to take a picture with him.
Then we got our first big snow storm! Overnight it felt like the season had changed to winter, and Royal Gorge cross country ski resort reopened.
Our friend Mya came to visit, and fell in love with cross country skiing after trying it with us.
Our friend Ken (who joined us in Japan for a cycling adventure) came up with his girlfriend Jennifer. They both did great at cross country skiing.
Jennifer helped us finish this challenging puzzle of New York City.
We bought cross country skating gear and have been skiing 21 times at Royal Gorge so far. Kristina especially loves it!
We typically bring a lunch and ski for about 3 hours. Here’s Pete at a prime picnic spot. It’s called Lola’s Lookout, and is at about 7,500 feet elevation. The views from here are great!
Behind us is the map of Royal Gorge, which is the largest cross country ski resort in North America. When all the trails are open, they offer 160 miles for skiing.
Here Pete is making a rock sculpture at Lola’s Lookout.
We can usually go about 15 miles a day. It’s a great workout and is a lovely way to spend time outdoors.
Skiing down hill can be challenging with cross country skis. We thought this sign was funny. (We didn’t need to take off our skis, but we did make sure to control our speed as we went down this steep descent.)
Cross country skating is done on a groomed track. The snow bank on the left was sparkling in the sun.
Royal Gorge resort was almost sold to a developer last year, but instead was purchased by the Trust for Public Land and is now protected from development.
Here we are celebrating our longest cross-country day: 17.5 miles with 9,033 feet of elevation gain.
The views while skiing are incredible!
It hasn’t been a big snow year, so before a storm we often had to take off our skis and walk a bit to get to enough snow to ski again.
We take the scenic Donner Pass route to get to cross country skiing. The horizontal bands in the photo are covered train tracks.
The lake is Donner Lake. It’s still a bit low, but hopefully the snow on the way will help raise the lake level.
Our friends Michael and Michele came up for a weekend with their daughter Nora.
We had lots of fun “tubing” at Soda Springs.
Nora is eight. She would usually win the races down the hill.
Here’s Pete with our nephews Spencer and Jeremy, and our niece Abby.
They like to snowboard, and we had fun spending a few days riding with them.
We kept our eyes on Jeremy, so we didn’t get pelted with snowballs when we weren’t looking.
Here we are enjoying honey walnut cookies made by Pete’s mom, yum!
Snowboarders spend time lying in the snow, and Pete decided to join them for this shot.
We love the hot tub at our rental house! It's been the most fabulous experience on those days when it's been snowing.
We will be in Tahoe until the end of April. We may post another blog about the next month to include more skiing and also some bike riding. Then we will be traveling around the US for the rest of 2014. Once we start our road trip, we will get back to regular blog postings. Thanks for reading.
