It was Logan’s second basketball game of the season on Saturday.  We had missed a game and a practice last weekend, but Stuart had warmed Logan up a bit on Friday after school with some shooting around.  On Saturday, the game started as usual where Logan stayed with the team but was not assertive.  Connor and I took a walk, but when we returned around the second half, Stuart told us that Logan was doing better.  The teammates were passing the balls more, and once Logan had the ball, he became a bit more assertive.  Then I witnessed it myself.  Logan worked harder on defense and got closer under the basket to attempt rebounds.  I saw two passes that he received; he dribbled them down the court which was very different from the past where he would pass it right off to a teammate.  When he got to the other end, he did not attempt a basket but he passed them on nicely to his teammates to make the basket.  It was great to see more energy from Logan.  He was happy to receive praise from us too.

     It was another day of waking up earlier despite a late night for the boys.  We hung out in the bedroom to read (me) and play on Tablet (Logan) until all of us were up.  Then we headed out to say bye to the Tsaos and the Kaos who were getting ready for another ski day.  Since our plan was to hang out in the village, we could take our time in the house until the shops were opened.  At 10am, we drove over to park at Harrah’s and walked around the town.  Then we arrived at the ice skating rink.  The boys were curious looking at the skaters, but they both declined to try it.  As we were walking away, I talked more with Connor and he changed his mind.  At the same time, Stuart motivated Logan with the promise of some tokens, and to our surprise, Logan accepted the offer.  Since we had lots of belonging, Stuart was the one chosen to go in with the boys.  We decided one kid at a time and Logan did not mind to be the first.  Logan looked tense initially and held on to the railing around the entire rink, but he remained with a smile on his face.  While Logan and Stuart were doing another loop, Connor asked repeatedly when he could go in, and so I got him ready.  By the time Stuart and Logan skated around, I wanted to switch kids and give Logan a break.  However he wanted to stay in and was ok staying by himself as Stuart would be with Connor.  Connor had fun despite his feet being slipping around.  All three of them stumbled around the rink few more times before they came out for a break.  Logan was finally tired and done then, but Connor wanted another round before we wrapped up ice skating.  They had fun.

     We walked over next door to a pizza joint for lunch.  We spent a lovely time there eating while listening to live music at the patio.  After being relaxed for awhile, Stuart realized he was tired from skating, so we slowly headed back.  When we arrived at the arcade at Harrah’s, we kept our promise to let the boys play in there.  Stuart got a bunch of tokens; we split up and the boys had fun playing at different machines.  Connor played a fishing game and caught the lobster in a treasure box which led to a big win of 500 tickets.  Connor and I were thrilled watching the tickets keep coming out from the machine.  At the end, the boys traded in all their tickets to select their prizes.

    We returned to the house and took a nap, then the second half of the fun day began.  The kids ran around the house playing tablets or foosball while Mckayla worked patiently on her art and craft project with a little bit of assistance from me.  We had another good homemade dinner prepared by Dave, Ted, Theresa and Martin.  This time we split up to have an adult table and kid table, and there were lots of giggling came out from both tables.  After dinner, the kids paired up and settled down to play Tablets nicely.  At some point, we got the kids down to beds.  The rest of kids were tired and down quietly, but ours were having a difficult time so Stuart stayed in the room with them for awhile.

    The adults played a couple rounds of pool then we decided to move on to poker.  Dave, Ted, Martin, Stuart and I played while Michelle, Theresa and Robyn were our audience.  Snacks and drinks were accompanying us again.  It was a great fun playing and chatting.  At the end it came down to Dave and I; we had a very close game and I was lucky enough to get a “Flush” eventually to take the win.  With that, we all returned to our rooms to end the night.  I was still quite hyper and so I read while Stuart watched a video; we both went down quite late.

   On Monday we all gathered in the morning and had our breakfast.  Then it was time to pack up to check out earlier.  While the adults were busy, the kids played with the remaining unpacked Tablets.  Some cute moments were captured with cameras.  By 9am, we all packed up and ready to go.  We said goodbye to everyone and ended this fun-filled weekend trip.  We caravanned back to the Bay Area with the Kaos, and grabbed a dim sum lunch before we finally parted with them.  As soon as we returned home, the boys were excited to play a Xbox game together while Stuart washed the car and I unpacked.  I was so exhausted the rest of the day as if the last three late nights finally caught up to me, but the trip was well worth it.

     Even though the kids were down late on Friday, Logan woke up five something and kept asking when it would be wake up time.  He finally came down from his bed after 6:30am and played with the Tablet until Connor was up too.  Later we made it outside our bedroom to say hi to the Tsaos and the Kaos who were nicely dressed for their ski day.  After they left, we slowly got ready and took off to the Heavenly Ski Resort which was only few minutes away from the house.  We parked at Harrah’s and took a short walk to Marriott Timber Lodge for the gondola ride.  We were all excited to get inside one; the boys told us that they were scared but they had the biggest smile on their faces.  After the nice long scenic ride, we stepped out to the Observation Deck to look around.  The boys were anxious to play with snow, so they rushed us through the walk around and back onto a gondola.  When we were up at the base, the kids were fascinated and could not wait to get a snow ball in their hand.  Logan wanted to play snowball fight and Connor wanted to build a snowman.  Unfortunately there was no fresh snow as it was mostly hard packed.  We walked around and encouraged the boys to consider trying tubing, but both of them declined and they just focused on their missions.  Stuart and I ultimately gave up and let them play at an open area.  Stuart became the snowball machine, digging up the icy snow to make softer balls for the boys.  I started making a snowman for Connor.  Later Logan built a little snow fort too.  We ended up spending quite a bit of relaxing time hanging out there.  Later we moved over to the viewing area for tubing to see if we sparked some interests; the boys ended up enjoying their time just sitting and watching people coming down on tubes.

    After 1pm, we finally wanted to take our lunch break.  The lodge was busy; it took awhile to get the food and find a table.  As Logan was finishing up his lunch, he looked so tired and wanted to fall sleep.  Once we stepped outside to the snow again, we all got a second wind.  We found another play area to play snowballs fight.  This time I got involved digging and making snowballs, and we teamed up for the fight.  Logan and I ultimately had snow on our chests and we lost the fight.  Connor was tired and was the one suggesting us to return to the house.  We picked up free cocoa and cookies right before we hopped on the gondola which was a nice little treat.  We got back to the house to say hello to others and quickly went down for a nap.

    After nap, we met up with everyone in the living room and kitchen.  The kids slowly migrated downstairs to play with foosball which was a great hit for the kids over the weekend.  After the enjoyable hotpot dinner and cake, Logan and Brandon got to play Minecraft Xbox.  Brandon knows how to play Minecraft but was not as familiar with the Xbox version, so Logan gave pointers to get him started.  Later the husbands decided to play pool while the girls hung out and chatted at the table.  We took a break later to get the kids to bed; once again it took the boys sometimes before they finally stayed down.  We then migrated downstairs with drinks and snacks to join the rest for pool time.  After some great chats and laughs, we went to bed to end another late night.

    Connor loves celebrations.  After the New Year, he has been asking how many days it will be before his birthday.  Since the wait of 200 days+ was too long for him, he has just been focusing on mine.  He drew me a few cards and wrote me several messages on the days leading to my special day.  Stuart had the boys write me a greeting card, and Connor happily presented it to me the birthday morning.  Logan is often absent-minded about these things, but he told me Happy Birthday a few times throughout the day which made me happy too.

   My birthday on Friday was definitely overshadowed a bit with the excitement of the Tahoe trip.  Stuart and I ended up packing in the morning and having a quick lunch before picking up the boys after their lunches at school.  Connor was so happy and ran all the way across the playground to meet me.  At Logan’s school, it took Connor and I some times to spot Logan in the middle of playground that was full of kids, then we followed him to his classroom to pack up.  Quickly at home, we dropped off their school things, made a potty run, and we were on our way for the drive.

     The first hour on the road was uneventful. Then I noticed a major accident in Fairfield on my phone GPS, but by then it was too late to take the route to Stockton where the Tsaos were en route.  We decided to take the detour to local streets according to the GPS and we apparently saved an hour from being stuck on the freeway.  Once we hopped back on the freeway, the rest of the way was fine and the boys were happily watching the videos.  At 6pm, we arrived at our rental house at Tahoe and met up with the Tsaos who had comfortably settled in.  We took a tour of the beautiful house, and with the help from the boys, we picked the bedroom with the bunk bed to stay for the next 3 days.  Stuart and I left to pick up something from a store while the boys stayed to watch TV with Brandon and Peyton.  By the time we returned, Dave almost had the dinner prepared for us.  We were all very hungry and enjoyed the yummy dumplings, eggrolls and noodle salad.  Afterward, I was happy as they gathered to sing me Happy Birthday and Connor blew out the candle with me.  After eating a slice of cake, we started getting the kids down for the night.  All of them were too excited to go to sleep and they seemed to take turns coming out from the room.  Logan loved being on the upper bunk; later he complained that Connor was bothering him while he tried to sleep.  By 10pm the kids seemed to be finally quiet, and that when the Kaos arrived after their traffic laden drive up.  Mckayla and Marcus handed me their beautifully handmade birthday cards for me and then they were sent to bed.  The adults hung out to talk for another hour before we all parted to go to bed.

    More about what we did on Saturday on the next blog.  Fast forwarding to that evening;  Theresa and Martin arrived in the afternoon, and we all gathered for a big hotpot dinner with all the ingredients everyone brought up from home.  After dinner, I was lucky to have another round of birthday cake from Robyn and Dave and another birthday song from everyone.  Connor helped me blowing the candle again and we all enjoyed the chocolate cake before the kids were sent off to bed. 

    This year’s birthday is definitely special one that I will remember fondly.

    I had a dinner plan with the girls for my and Kathy’s birthday celebration today.  We made an early dining reservation at La Fondue where I had been wanting to try for a long time, so I was excited.  I picked up Kathy and we arrived at 4:10pm to meet up with Robyn, Michelle and Julie outside the restaurant.  Thuy joined us, then we were seated; shortly after Theresa arrived too.  Michelle, Robyn and Theresa had pre-purchased the Groupon combination dinners which included wines, salads, cheese fondues, meat course and the chocolate fondue.  After we made the choices for cheeses and cooking method, the dinner began.  We toasted with sparkling wine for our gathering and dived in.  After the salads, we enjoyed the Stinking Rose and Bacon/Cajun cheese fondue which were very tasty.  Then the spread of meats arrived for grilling; there were a variety of marinated chicken and beef, different seafood and many exotic meats.  We had fun cooking and trying different meats.  I was a bit hesitant trying some exotic meats, but ultimately they all tasted very good.  The restaurant had a romantic decor and quite dark, so Michelle assisted us with her phone flashlight to identify the meats and check doneness.  Grilling, eating and chatting were definitely fun and interesting.  We ultimately cooked up and finished all the meats, and we were stuffed by then.  After the wait person cleaned up the table, we were served with two different chocolate fondues and many items for dipping.  Kathy and I were also given candles for our birthdays while they lighted up the flaming fondue.  The chocolate was very yummy and my favorite was the cream puff with ice cream inside dipping with the warm chocolate sauce.  The entire meal was delicious and the evening was fun with the company.  We wrapped up this three hour dinner date and we all parted to go home.

   I made home after the boys were showered and just in time for teeth cleaning and bedtime reading.  The boys were happy to see me and excited to share what they did in the afternoon.   They also could not wait to tell me the fun dinner they had, pizza with TV watching.  I am glad we all had a good evening.