Tahoe

I just had a wonderful weekend with my family in Tahoe celebrating my mom's 65th birthday. I wanted to share a few highlights.

Scott offered Danyka four choices of activities before going to bed. Three of them were games and the fourth one was to work in her math book. She chose the math book. Makes me proud to be her uncle.

I heard Craig and Annie describing their fart-off from last week. Annie won. Makes me proud to be her uncle.

We slid down a snow-covered hill on plastic trash can lids for hours. It was fast, reckless, and a tremendous amount of fun. The "we" included my dad (67) my niece (5 1/2) and my nephew (9). We linked together, held on to each other, and went down whatever way we happened to go. Watching the people at the bottom scamper to get out of our way only added to the fun (most of the time.) Props to Debbie, Scott, Joshua, Craig, Dad, and Danyka.

Prior to the plastic trash can lids we went down a hill on inner tubes. This included all those listed above, Vickie and the youngest three. After a couple runs on the lap of an adult Danyka decided to try going solo. I was on my way up the hill and saw her at the top so I decided to stop and watch. Shortly into her run she was off the tube and sliding down the hill face first with her tube following behind. Soon I found myself in a full sprint chasing after my poor niece. I felt so bad for her as I had hoped to be able to reach her sooner than I did, but she slid quite a ways. To her credit she quickly was willing to go again and left that mountain with a smile. Mom claims I had observers in the crowd cheering me on during my niece pursuit. Craig said I looked like O.J. Simpson. And Max recounted the event with a demonstration that included hand motions showing me jumping the fence. In the end there was no major injury and we all got a good story out of it.

Late Sunday morning I returned to my loft in the cabin for a short snooze while the kids went out to play in the snow. As I laid in bed I heard this exchange:

Dad: Did anyone invite Uncle Kevin? Max, go up and ask Kevin if he wants to go outside and play in the snow.

(Max climbs up the stairs and enters my room).

Max: Uncle Kevin, can I go out and play in the snow?

Me: Sure. But I'm going to stay here and rest.

(I asked Max to shut the door before leaving)

Dad: What did Kevin say?

Max: (with enthusiasm) He said, "Yes!"

(I didn't get out of bed to explain)