A Weekend Getaway

During this entire post you are going to be forced to look at pictures of nothing but scenery and me and Dustin. That is because there were no children around to take pictures of during this trip. Yes, you heard me correct. For Christmas I gave Dustin a surprise trip to Lake Tahoe/Reno for just me and him. Actually, this present was really given by me, to me (and just a little to Dustin:). My sister, Lynnette, offered to trade us a weekend of babysitting, so she braved six small children, while Dustin and I had a fun weekend away. And then we braved six small children a couple of weeks later, while she and her hubby took their turn.

We started out Saturday morning at this beautiful place.

We didn't realize that Reno had a temple until a few days before, but we're glad we went. It was so nice and peaceful there. Then we headed to Tahoe for a little snowshoeing.

Check out that snow! Since we had no kids to take pictures of, we took a lot of snow pictures. But, it was pretty cool snow/ice crystals.

This was our view at the top of our hike. It was the perfect, sunny day for hiking and the lake looked so beautiful.

This is Dustin stuck in a gumdrop. At least that is what he called them. They were actually soft, fluffy, snow covered bushes that looked like the perfect place to walk across. But it was a trap. The snow was hovering on top of the bush, and under the bush was an empty shell, about 4 feet down (I'm sure there is a parable that we could make out of this). So when you fell in it was a little hard to get out. At least it was hard for Dustin. Apparently the weight of the person standing on the gumdrop counts, so I never actually fell in one. Sorry, honey.

We were bummed that we never saw any of these, although we were told that there were quite a few of them around. OK, who am I kidding. Dustin and I are about the wimpiest people around when it comes to wild animals (and aliens). We were glad to avoid any animal encounters.

Here is the bathroom that I dug my way through to use. Just kidding. I'm pretty sure that this bathroom is out of commission for about 9 months out of the year.

On Sunday we drove around the lake and walked down to the water. It was freezing on that day, so we didn't spend as much time outdoors. But we were there just in time for the sunset, and it was beautiful.

And the next morning we flew home to become Mommy and Daddy again. And that was good, too.

Rodents and Such

My kid has a rat tail. But isn't he so cute, even with 1990 hair? Speaking of 1990, the other day I was singing "The Right Stuff" by New Kids On the Block and doing the Right Stuff Dance for my family. If you have ever lived with me as a college roommate (ahem, Jacque) you know what dance I am talking about, and I probably perfected it with your help and encouragement. Anyway, my family really liked that. The End.

But back to rodents. Did I tell you that we have a mice problem in one of our many sheds in our backyard? There were so many of them that they weren't afraid of us. They were stealing our chicken's food and as I stood there and watched they would run around, stop and look at me, eat some more food and then kick my foot and say "Whadaya gonna do about it?" At least that is what I think it meant in mouse squeaks. So we set a few mousetraps. One in each corner of the shed. And within a few minutes, all four traps were filled. We emptied them and all four traps were filled again by the next day. And we were happy. Especially me because I didn't have to empty the traps. That is definitely a Man Of The House job around here.