For Sale

One slope-side condo at Squaw Valley. KT-22 and Red Dog views. Two bedrooms, two full baths. In-unit laundry. Fireplace. Balcony facing mountain. Murphy-bed-style dining table. 1,100 square feet. One block from Village. Next to Cable Car and Olympic House. Underground parking for two cars closer to lifts than is Squaw's parking. 2 hours 45 minutes from our suburb without traffic. Pool, hot tubs, gym, tennis courts. Built in 2001. $844K.

Yup, we are selling our Tahoe place. We don't use it enough to justify the cost of ownership. I'm sorry to break this to those of you have become used to your annual vacation there. Or more than annual. That would be you, Dad. And it was our pleasure for you and your entourage to make it one of your homes away from home, too.

This place was a fantasy when The Pinks were younger. We closed on it a month before I got pregnant with the youngest ones. I loved its efficient size -- easy to clean up compared to our home in the Bay. We achieved our goal, which was having all Three Pinks ski well and having a place for us to create memories. There was no schlepping of gear. There was no wondering if there'd be games / pool toys / snacks / sunscreen there. It was so easy. And it's still easy, it's just empty most of the time.

Things I will miss:

1. The ritual of the drive: No electronics until we cross the Benicia Bridge. Pass the Jelly Belly Factory. Whiz past the Mondavi Center at UC Davis. The Yolo Causeway is two hours from Tahoe. Skirt Sacramento. Roseville. Rocklin. Stop at Ikeda for produce, snacks and Dutch Apple Pie. Historic Auburn. Gain elevation. Start to notice pine trees. Watch for snowline in winter. Gold Run. Soda Springs. Boreal. Descend to Donner Lake. Exit I-80 at Truckee and drive 10 more miles to the Olympic Rings! Three miles to go. Squaw Valley meadow. Arrive.

2. The view of the ski slopes from our bed. Skiing until 2pm then napping, waking up just in time to see the last of the skiers come off the mountain.

3. Not touching the car for a whole weekend. Who needs to when your activities are right outside your door and there are also restaurants, shops and a Starbucks?

4. Our neighbors, whose kids come in and out of our condo like it is their own. As do our kids with theirs.

5. The convenience of a season ski pass.

6. Winter days skiing with my brother and the extended family. Summer days at the Dollar Point Beach with the extended family.

7. Three generation ski trips which usually included dinner at the best restaurant in the Village, Mamasake.

Memorable moments:

1. The ex-wife of a still-friend who said to me as she was departing from her week-long stay, "How come there was no good coffee in the condo? I had to walk to Starbucks."

2. The nonstop snow, the mountain-closing kind, that kept my father, Thing 2 and I indoors the entire duration of one Three Generation Ski Trip.

3. Teaching the kids to play poker.

4. Paige teaching me that it's perfectly acceptable for kids to ski in their pajamas.

5. The ambulance ride to the Tahoe Forest Hospital when one of The Pinks had croup so badly that she was turning blue. Another time when I fled the condo at 2am and drove back to the Bay with all Three Pinks after getting one's croup under control after realizing that I had no chance of falling back asleep that night anyway.

6. Barry and Kristin's wedding on the west shore in August 2002.

We'll not stop skiing at Squaw. After all, The Pinks gain a huge amount of satisfaction knowing they can beat me down every single run. I maintain that my form is better. But we'll ski other places, too. And we'll look back on those years happily.

Same post, different year.

For the 12th year in a row, I think, we've gone up to Tahoe over Christmas. For most of the last several years Dave's sister and her family have come up from LA to join us. They did this year, too, and stayed with us for four nights. All that togetherness was great. I was reminded again how hilarious my niece is (aged 17) and the youngest Pinks liked all that extra time with her. I love having houseguests up at Tahoe because I'm on vacation, too, and Squaw provides so much to do outside, both summer and winter.

We skied. We ate. We played poker. We watched It's a Wonderful Life. We did a puzzle. My SIL did most of it. She has a lot of patience. We watched the snow fall on Christmas Eve and stayed an extra night to avoid the mess that had become I-80. We ate Japanese on Christmas Eve, too, because there's no Chinese food at Squaw.

My mother-in-law got each of her grand daughters selfie sticks so we played with that on the chair lift. Dave shot the picture here, albeit a bit nervously because what do you do if the iPhone falls out and into the snow below?!

On Day 1 I took a wrong turn off the Shirley Lake chair and ended up on the mogul course. If it hadn't been so icy I would have given it an upright shot. But instead I took off my skis and walked down. Until, that is, I slipped and came down a ways on my tush. Which again, would have been fine had I been wearing ski pants. Oh no. Thing 2 outgrew hers and so I was in jeans. Which then filled with cold snow. And one of my skis flew into the air and landed on my arm, which I thought might have been gashed open by the sharp edges. It wasn't, fortunately, but it is 50 shades of purple and yellow now. The orthopedic surgeon (the BIL) took a look and deemed it ugly but not dangerous.

Dave, Thing 1 and I met the Inverarity-Moffat's for dinner in Truckee one night. They are in from London and the meal was over in a flash. So good to see them as always. It makes me want to just hop the pond and weekend with them in places like Vienna and Berlin.

Pre Ski

I'm up at Tahoe with three twins and one more. Each of my twins brought a friend, one of whom is also a twin.

We drove up last night in a rental car, a Chevy Tahoe that we call The Island. It is the largest thing I have ever driven. One of our cars is in the shop because Eldest Daughter was rear-ended in front of the high school two weeks ago. This stuff happens. I could have driven the Volvo but it has 98K miles on it and our tendency is to replace our cars right before they reach 100K miles. There's no sense in rushing that.

Today has been very peaceful. The kids have been in and out of the hot tubs, (In case you wondered how many pool chairs could fit in one, the answer is eight.) in and out of Starbucks and Soupa, and in and out of our condo playing board and card games. I love this age.

It's raining here in the valley and snowing up top. The temperature is dropping and it will be snowing down here any minute. The fall colors are stunning adjacent to the tall green trees up the mountain and the falling snow line. This picture doesn't do it justice.

Dave and Eldest Daughter got a tour of Evanston, Illinois today courtesy of my aunt and uncle. Tomorrow is shopping the Magnificent Mile and Monday is the official Northwestern campus tour. From there they head to Ann Arbor. I find this all horribly unsettling since I basically birthed her yesterday.

My father recently put together a blurb book on the summer of 1987, when our immediate family moved from Alaska to California. The book covers our trip south on the Alaskan Marine Highway and ALCAN. I journaled during this 6-week voyage and went back to my journal to fill in some details for him. Looking back through those entries was a scary thing in so many ways. In retrospect, the trip itself was really dangerous. Second, I was a selfish terror at age 20. The comfort in journaling is the writing, not the re-reading. Funny, though, that I don't feel the same way about this blog. At least yet.

The scenic route

Over the summer I drove to Tahoe via the Eastern Sierras. I hadn't planned to drive this route but having children means you sometimes take a detour. I spent the first part of the drive, the ugly freeway part, on a conference call. And then it was four lane roads narrowing to two lane roads into the mountains. As the trees got bigger I started to relax. I rolled down my windows and took deep breaths of the pine and earth smell.

After an hour-long stop at a lake where I spent part of my childhood and where I retrieved a child who was in the midst of hers, the two of us continued the adventure. There were no gas stations for the next 100 miles. She was chatty. We drove up and up and up until we hit the pass, and then drove down and down and down into the increasingly arid Nevada desert and where the landscape looks like paintings. We stopped for a late lunch at a dive pancake house. Finally we made a sharp left and after ten more miles of narrow, windy roads, saw Lake Tahoe. It was a relief to see water after so many landlocked miles.

It's not often I travel off the -- off my -- beaten path. This single-day journey was fun because it was unanticipated and because I got to experience it with one of my children. It made me want to take a road trip.

The Safeway in King's Beach had parking spots but inside there was barely any room to maneuver. This was expected at 6pm the night before a holiday. My daughter spotted a classmate's father, one who lives less than a mile from us in our suburb, We shopped and then drove on to Squaw Valley, where I stopped trying to keep my eyes open at 10pm and awoke 11 hours later.

Just Don't Look Down

Today, July 5, the five of us went to Tahoe Treetop Adventure Park. There we zip lined, made our way across bridges suspended 40' above ground and overcame any fears we had of flying through the trees like monkeys. Thing 2 skipped the beginner course altogether and by the end of our two hours there had done all the intermediate and advanced courses. I stuck to the beginner one which, with eight separate challenges, wasn't all that easy!

Like bicycling around Seattle, this was a reach for me. Again, I'm glad I did it. And although I'm exhausted, I'm proud. The Youngest Pinks and I had been there before and I've got to tell you, it was a lot more fun this time when it wasn't raining buckets.

Blue and yellow make green.

My brother, my dad, Tori, and I played poker on the last night of the annual three-generation ski trip. We didn't have poker chips up so we played with pastel colored M&Ms. It definitely changes the game when the colors don't have a set value. At one point my brother was out of greens so my father reminded us that blue and yellow make green. And then, after laughing hysterically, we continued.

It was also funny when, on the way home from Northstar, we talked about a book I've had on my Tahoe nightstand for several years. It's on the Donner Party. I started telling my brother that I've been meaning to read this book and my father said, "Oh. It's a cookbook?!" Again, hilarious. But only if you know California history.

We had three days of beautiful weather and togetherness. The snow is what you'd expect from the amount of rain we've had this year-- minimal. The best ski conditions are in the morning and you'd think that being right here on the mountain we'd be the first ones out. But no, we're a little lazy that way. Especially Tori. I love the way she skis with my brother -- more aggressively and without whining. He challenges her.

My rocket scientist moment occurred when I took my boots back to Granite Chief because they'd been bothering me. The guy in the boot department managed to keep a straight face when letting me know that the likely reason they hurt was because I'd put new liners in without first removing the old ones! Lovely. Being able to laugh at yourself is a gift.

The beach in winter.

There wasn't a lot of snow at Tahoe the week of Christmas. Sure, we skied but the conditions read more April than December.

One of my clients lives up at the lake full-time and she suggested meeting at the Commons Beach one afternoon with all of our kids. I would never have thought to go to the beach in the winter. And The Pinks were dead against it. Until we got there, that is.

The beach was covered in snow and ice, which made for fun slipping and sliding. Not surprisingly, the kids were drawn to the water's edge and were fascinated with the transition from ice to water. The beach resembled tide pools. I shot a lot of pictures -- the whole scene was beautiful and something I hadn't planned to see since we rarely leave Squaw during ski season.

Our kids ran around on the playground and then we headed to Syd's for a late lunch of smoothies and bagels.

An unexpected treat.

Ironman

We woke up to a light drizzle in Tahoe on Saturday morning. Two sets of twins plus a singleton dressed in ski clothes. Paige and I threw on whatever warm clothes were left and piled the litter into the car and headed to the Treetop Adventure Park at Granlibakken. Rain or shine, we were going ziplining. Although it was cold and wet, it was not as cold and wet as our athlete friends were going to be the next day during the inaugural Lake Tahoe Ironman. That kept us going as the drizzle turned into a full downpour.

In case you need a refresher, an Ironman is a 2.4 miles swim followed by a 112 mile bike ride followed by a marathon. I've always thought it extreme. After seeing one I think the willing participants do have more than a few loose screws.

The Adventure Park is well done and we can't wait to go back on a warm day. It's a series of ropes courses and you are harnessed in. Tori, Monkey Girl, loved every minute of it because she left her fear gene down in the Bay.

A full downpour at elevation 6500 F means snow not too much higher. And we were not disappointed by the beautiful snow that followed. The Ironpeople, not so thrilled. I choose to believe that this is a sign for an early and wet winter. In all, this storm brought four inches of snow to the upper mountain.

We had five friends compete in the Ironman and all five finished. That is an amazing feat given that 20% of the people who started the race did not finish.

Squaw was Ironman Central so we were well-situated for the fanfare. On Sunday, race day, we positioned ourselves at the bike to run transition and then four times along the marathon course, which passed through the Village twice. We also saw all five friends finish. These athletes began at 6:30am and the fastest, a multiple-time Ironwoman, finished in 12 hours, 30 minutes.

Yes, we were still warm in our beds when these crazy people started and finished the swim. In fact, I'd say we'd only progressed to drinking our Starbucks in our PJs (fetched by some subset of the five girls) while most participants got the first 50 miles under their wheels. By the end of the day I was grateful for my peaceful, caffeinated start.

Although I'm know that competing is stressful and that this next part is going to make me eligible for the Super Ninnie Award, we didn't have much downtime once the participants started passing through the valley. It is a lot of work tracking five athletes online and then taking the right poster to the right spots on the course, watching for them, and then screaming until you are hoarse. I had no energy left to drive home Sunday night -- the kids and I were completely spent -- so we left Monday morning.

It is a beautiful thing to become an Ironman, one that our friend Sherman Chu got talked into by a childhood friend and achieved with a dance across the finish line and then tears streaming down his face. I am in awe of him, our other friends and frankly, all the participants. It is an enormous physical and mental challenge. We saw lots of people quit after the bike ride. And lots of people being assisted off the course in various forms of distress. This race, at elevation and with an especially punishing bike ride, had the slowest finish times and highest DNF rates of any Ironman event this year.

The very last picture here is my favorite - us cheering on Sherman at T2. His smile is genuine and the emotions on all of our faces are raw, pure joy at the being in the moment of achievement.

One other thing of note. There are two routes from the Village to our condo. One passes in front of the Olympic House, between it and the Cable Car building. The other passes around the back, the mountain side, the side with the ski lifts and sun deck. After we cheered our last friend across the finish line and gave him the requisite and well-deserved praise, Paige and I headed back to the condo to meet up with the kids. Brilliant moi suggested we take the mountain route. While we were the only ones walking that way and it was unlit, the Village, not 1/4 mile away, easily had 2,500 people mulling around and very loud music playing. As it turned out, Paige and I were not alone after all: I spotted a bear climbing a tree not even 10 yards from us. I then proceeded to forget everything my father taught me about being in the wild and screamed BEAR!! as I high-tailed it toward to condo door. Paige followed suit, trying to outrun me because, in the end, only the slowest person gets eaten.

The All Sport Store

Nordstrom for Sporty Spice. A three-level sporting-goods store with masterfully displayed firearms, boxing gear, bowling shoes, stand-up paddle boards and camo lingerie.

Dave, The Pinks and I made it a destination while we were up at Tahoe this summer. There's one in Reno that opened in 2008 and where we could have spent the whole day, including three square meals. The store is 295,000 square feet. You enter by walking under a 16,000 gallon aquarium. In the center of the store is a 65' tall Ferris wheel. We rode it of course.

Scheels started in Minnesota in 1902 and now has 24 stores in ten states although none are in California. The Reno store is worth a trip. Dead serious. If you get bored you can always go to the Legends of Sparks Marina outlet mall next door. Does anyone know why the mall is called Marina when it's not near any significant source of water?!

While walking through every department we took our best shot at the indoor shooting range, bowled a few frames and ate fudge. The backpack display was so overwhelming that the kids had purchase paralysis. I was tempted to buy shotgun shell Christmas tree lights for our next door neighbor.

Scheels doesn't have the smell or cramped feeling of a Big 5. The departments are spacious (land is cheap in the 10 states they operate in??) and the displays well-stocked. The hunting clothes department had your basic utilitarian wear, things people who want to kill animals would wear. And then camo baby clothes. And camo lingerie. And camo bathing suits and camo six-inch-heels suitable for who-knows-what in the wild. In case you aren't into guns you can buy bows and arrows there, either for hunting or archery. Or fishing rods and reels. Want to fish from your canoe? You're covered.

Amidst the gear were displays of the US Presidents and facts about them. Odd.

A bush plane replica hangs from the ceiling. Tired? Take a nap in a hammock or cot in the camping department. There's even a Disney Princess tent if someone needs a rest or diversion. Attending the University of Nevada at Reno? Or just a fan? Get your Wolfpack wear here. Buy new running shoes and shorts to wear with that Wolfpack wear. Or get some Rollerblades. Or a new bike or nine.

The pool. The lake. The river.

Three perfect days at Tahoe.

Day 1 we spent with friends, first at the Truckee 4th of July Parade and then at Northstar. The Truckee Parade is very sweet, it's what Danville's was before it got huge and crazy and commercial. We got there 20 minutes before it started, sat down in the shade and enjoyed the mountain-style patriotism. It lasted an hour and that was just right.

Day 2 was spent with Barry's extended family and friends at Dollar Point. We kayaked on the lake for the first time and Paris, Tori and I just loved it. I can't wait to do it again. There's a certain peacefulness out there on the water.

Day 3 was our biennial raft down the Truckee River, this time with two other families. It was hot but not too hot. It was also crowded, which makes for lots of water-gun fights, within our clan and impromptu with others doing the same thing. It was a good, wholesome day enjoying the best of Tahoe.

On Day 4 we packed up and came home. This is starting to sound biblical. I started missing the mountains the minute we crossed Donner Summit. En route home we stopped at Machado Orchards for pies and produce. Usually we stop at Ikeda, across the highway. Machado is lesser-known, smaller and cleaner, without the attached greasy spoon and bathroom line. The kids ate all of the peaches I bought before we got home and we're going to try the peach pie after dinner tonight.

Dave shot the picture at left with his iPhone on Day 1 from the Village at Squaw. You can see the low clouds and then the amazing sunset. I've never seen anything like this. It just makes you wonder what a DSLR could have done here.

It's Easy.

We're not up at Tahoe much these days. Other commitments seem to conspire against us. But every time I come up here I relax.

I vacillate on whether or not we should sell our place. It sits empty more often than not. But it's so easy to be here. So easy to walk to Starbucks. To Mamasake. To the funitel. So easy to pull into the garage and leave the car untouched for a day or a weekend or a week. I like the convenience of having our ski gear in one place. I like having a place my kids call home, so different from our home in the Bay. I like that they view the ski resort as their backyard and play outside for hours with their friends. I like that our family has a decade of memories here.

Today I sit in bed, propped up on pillows, looking out my window at some of the country's best skiers competing for US National Alpine titles. People stop by and say hello. I take my time in the kitchen, looking forward to the arrival of friends tonight for dinner.

The Sunday paper arrives at the front door and I have time to read it. I like listening to and talking with Dave. I like the sound of the crunchy spring snow, thawed and refrozen, under my Sorel boots. I like the cold air, warmed by the sun in March. I like the happy families and little kids that look too small to be on skis. I like the taste of a cold beer after skiing at altitude.

The Special Ski Trip

There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

I read that on a blog and it's stayed with me. Last Monday was one of those days it rang true. It was a cold, crisp day at Tahoe. Windless but absolutely positively winter. There were few people on our mountain and I skied run after run after run without lift lines or many people in sight. I practiced my carved, parallel turns. I skied down things too steep to do defensively. 

Best of all was the company -- my dad and brother.

My dad's done a great job of recovering from his heart surgery last summer and my brother and I took full advantage of his health to attack the mountain on this weekday. It was one of the best days I'd had on the mountain in a long time.

The picture above is my dad, brother and Tori, who skied with us the day before. I dragged them to the Ritz Carlton at Northstar for lunch after Tori's ski race. Yes, she won. My favorite part of this picture is my dad's smile. It's the "What more could I want?!" smile.

Nine and Eleven.

Nine was the number of inches of snow we had in the 24 hours prior to our last day of skiing on this trip.

And eleven is the age our babies will be on December 30. We had a little gathering for them in the mountains, complete with an extended family dinner followed by cake and ice cream with the neighbors.

It was crowded at Squaw but not unreasonably so. Apparently 80% of passholders cannot use their passes this week. This means that the people on the slopes are non-locals or people who are willing to pay full price for lift tickets. While in reality that translates to Amateur Hour, it also means that the lift lines are shorter than have been this week in previous years.

This observation made me think more about the changes at Squaw since KSL has taken over, nearly all of them good. The resort is now run like an efficient, friendly business. I gasped when I saw a bench at the top of a chairlift. One could actually sit down to adjust their boot or helmet before taking off! The mountain is peppered with directional signage and resort employees looking to be helpful by directing confused guests or answering questions. We receive text messages from Squaw on the conditions along the line of: Upper Mountain will open at 10a today due to extra avalanche control measures. The removal of three chairlifts and the installation of Big Blue opened up a large area of terrain for beginners, something Squaw has historically lacked. These are all good things, things that will make the mountain accessible for families and visitors.

My brother and Elliot came over in the morning and Liberty and I skied with them. They are pictured here warming up at Starbucks in the Gold Coast Complex. Then we met up with the Calabasas Cousins and did a run together before my brother headed down to swap kids and we lunched at The ARC. I did a few runs with the Calabasas Clan and then called it a day. One can only handle so much perfect sun, snow and fun. All that powder is tough on the legs.

Eight. Twenty-nine. Eighteen.

Eight. Twenty-nine. Eighteen. Zero. Twenty. That's the number of inches of fresh snow we've had daily since we've come up to Tahoe. It's been extraordinary, the kind of weather I enjoy most from the sofa looking up at the mountains. We're here this week for our annual Calabasas Cousins ski trip.

I'm glad to be up here. Things have been very stressful at work the last several weeks and I really needed to just stare at the falling snow.

Things have changed a bit at Squaw since last winter.

First, lift tickets are now variably priced. That means that a single day child's ticket is $58 this week. That same ticket was $10 two years ago. What the heck?! That's a hefty investment for a young child who may or may not want to ski after they get off the funitel. I'm glad our kids are past that ambivalent stage. The good news is that the consecutive storms scared off the lightweight skiers with their rear wheel drives and chains and the kids got more runs per dollar than they would have had the weather and roads been clear and dry.

Big Blue Express opened. It's a high-speed chair that runs from just below the Gold Coast Complex to Shirley Lake. This alleviates the congestion at the Gold Coast chair and the cross mountain jog to Shirley where us intermediates spend a lot of time.

The Squaw Valley Sport Shop was replaced by an equivalent KSL-owned shop. It's much better lit with modern merchandising and merchandise.

Tori joined our neighbors to see Bethany Hamilton speak. Bethany is the inspirational professional surfer whose story was told in the movie Soul Surfer.

All nine of us took a few runs together the day before Christmas in the sunshine. We like to do the Resort run right before lunch then eat by the firepits on the Resort's patio. However, the patio restaurant wasn't open (again, what the heck?!) so we tried out the new pizza joint, which, fortunately, is better than the Fireside Pizza in the Village. For the record, we believe that the pizza served at Fireside is the same stuff you buy in the frozen food aisle at Safeway.

Christmas dinner was at Mamasake. This is seemingly the only night where there is no wait for a table. After stuffing ourselves with elaborate rolls, sauces and garnishes we waddled home and watched Elf, everyone's favorite Christmas movie.

Somewhere in there one of the kids introduced the subject of oxymorons and we brainstormed until we were laughing so hard that those watching Elf just gave up.

Here are our favorites:

• Harry the bald guy. (Charlotte's husband on Sex and the City)
• Jumbo shrimp.
• Pretty ugly.
• Comfortable bra.
• The silence was deafening.

Spring Break - Working Mommy Style

The Pinks are on holiday next week. This makes me both happy and sad. Happy because they will ski with their cousins in Tahoe. Sad because I do not have the week off work.

I went back to working in-house last fall. While I didn't anticipate doing so, this opportunity was too good to pass up and, eight months later, I still think I made a good decision. But I no longer have the same amount of time off work I did when I was self-employed.

Once you get out of school, summer is a season and not a vacation. I asked the kids if they'd prefer me to stay in the Bay or if they'd prefer me to be up at Tahoe with them and be working. They did not hesitate to tell me that they wanted me to come up to the mountains and that they'd be extra sensitive to my work demands.

This year is an adjustment, the whole-mommy-cannot-take-off-as-much-time-as-she-wishes thing. But in general I feel lucky to have a fun job that I can do from home three days a week. (And Tahoe is home, too, thanks to that mortgage payment.) The Singapore and China trip provided me with a lot of air time, which I worked a great deal of.

Still, I will be sad to see our extended family create new mountain memories while I try to change the world, one performance tester at a time.

Finally, a real ski weekend.

Some snow has fallen since Christmas. Not a lot but enough to make a trip to Tahoe worthwhile.

I have missed the mountains. I have missed the snow. I have missed the scent of pine trees. I have missed our neighbors.

We skied. We had dinner with our neighbors. We ice skated at Northstar with friends and had dinner. I'm going to start calling Northstar the northern outpost of our Bay Area suburb. So many familiar races around the rink! Tori waited in line for 1 hour 35 minutes to have her face painted. Who knew she had such patience?!

Now let's talk about the much-hyped ski-through Starbucks, the first one of its kind in the US. It's been featured prominently in the news, even on CNN. Well, it's not so much ski-through as it is ski-up. It's really a window in the Gold Coast Complex. So if you hop off the Funitel, carry your skis and poles down the long corridor and put on your skis prematurely then you can scoot to the window and order your grande, extra-hot Caramel Macchiato with half 2% milk and half whole milk, no whipped cream. And then ski uphill a bit to the bunny hill chair or ski down to the intermediate and advanced chairs. The reality is this: anyone with any ski ability whatsoever takes the back door off the Funitel and bypasses Starbucks and the novice skiers altogether en route to the more challenging terrain.

For the record, I saw no one on skis holding a Starbucks cup.

Lemon Coconut Cake

We spent the week before Christmas at Tahoe as usual. Unfortunately it was blue skies and dry the whole nine days we were in residence. It turned out to be okay. It would have been hard for me to focus on work if the snow conditions were pristine. And I did have to work.

We spent one afternoon ice skating at Northstar. Skating is free and ice skates are $5. This could be the biggest bargain on the north shore. The rink is lined with fire pits and heated cabanas. F&B can be ordered and consumed right there. And there was a live band playing. Even the break for the Zamboni was an event with people lining up around the outside edges of the rink high fiveing the driver. We killed a few hours with my parents, my brother and his family, his sister-in-law and her kids, and his in-laws, the Owles. Northstar was very lively compared to Squaw.

After that we headed to the Owles' nest in Dollar Point for drinks and appetizers. My parents birthdays are Dec 5 and 6 and I'd baked a cake that morning for a belated celebration at the Owles. It was one of the best cakes I'd ever baked. The cream cheese frosting is worth every calorie.

Layered Coconut Cake

• 1 cup butter, room temp
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons good quality vanilla
• 3 cups cake flour, sifted
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup dessicated coconut
• lemon curd

Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 8-ounce packages Philadelphia Original Cream Cheese, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon good-quality vanilla extract
• 2 cups powdered sugar

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese at high speed until light, about five minutes. Beat in the vanilla, then the confectioners’ sugar; beat at low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and beat until light and fluffy, about three minutes.

Cake: Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter 3 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Butter the surface of the parchment paper as well. Lightly sift flour all over the sides and bottoms of the pans before tapping out any excess. Set aside.

In a fairly large bowl, sift the cake flour before adding the baking powder and sea salt. Whisk the three dry ingredients together and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer place the softened butter. Using a paddle attachment, cream the butter first on low speed, gradually increasing to medium speed. Once light and fluffy, add the sugar; again, beat until light and fluffy. This should take three minutes or less. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Add the vanilla and mix for an additional minute.

With the mixer on medium-low speed, alternate adding the flour mixture and the coconut milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Divide the batter between the three buttered/floured pans. Bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until ever-so-lightly browned on top. Transfer the pans to a wire rack and cool for ten minutes. Remove the cakes from the pans and continue to allow them to cool on the wire rack.

Once cooled, place one cake on a cake plate and start layering. Begin with the frosting, then add the desiccated/shredded coconut and last the lemon curd. Repeat twice. Take cake under table and eat it there so you don't have to share.

S'mores for Sale

The Pinks are not Girl Scouts so they don't sell Girl Scout Cookies. They don't sell magazine subscriptions. Nor wrapping paper or frozen cookie dough to benefit the school. They don't set up lemonade stands when I'm on duty.

I'm uncomfortable with them selling things. I'm happy to buy from your child when he or she asks but I don't want my kids selling things to people who may feel obligated to buy.

That all being said, I did let them sell s'mores at Tahoe. We figured out how much the supplies cost and then deducted them from the amount they took in. We discussed pricing options and how they would affect their profits. One for $3? Two for $5? One for $5 on Christmas Eve after the Squaw Valley Torchlight Parade? Into a red-ribbon-tied cellophane bag went two marshmallows, one square of Ghirardelli chocolate and one graham cracker. Once someone bought a package they used our marshmallow skewers to make the gooey treat. One thing we did not consider: marshmallows freeze and become hard to attach to a skewer when it's very cold outside.

As we thought might be the case, The Pinks provided a valuable offering and were met with enthusiastic buyers. There are several fire pits at Squaw and we discussed why it would not be appropriate to sell s'mores near the ice cream shop, the crepe shop and the roasted corn truck. The Pinks seemed to understand that we want to support the local economy, not take from it.

I'm glad we did this. Tori is tenacious. And I'll never see those buyers again, anyway.

Ho Ho. There's no snow.

We're at Tahoe this week. It's tradition. We come as soon as school breaks for the holidays then stay until Christmas. The crowds descend on Tahoe the 26th and by then we're on our way home, watching the cars creep up Hwy 80.

This year is different. The air is still crisp. Our neighbors are here. The shops and Village buildings are done up in their seasonal best. But one thing is missing: snow.

It's been a nearly dry year. There are three chair lifts open thanks to aggressive snow-making efforts. The ski teams dominate them. It feels a little bit off, like when you accidentally put your shirt on backwards.

The new facilities at Squaw are beautiful. I spent one morning working in the Olympic House. There are new cushy pleather chairs, strong wifi and an expanded menu at Wildflower that now includes a hearty, mountain-style breakfast and lunch. Man cannot live on those cookies alone, as addicting as they are. There are big screen TVs and a children's play area. And big, clean windows looking out on the now-barren mountains. The KT-22 deck has private cabanas and three large fire pits with Adirondack chairs.

The Harvey clan just departed after two days with us. I'm glad they skied with us; this proves we're not fair weather friends as the last time we met up with the whole entourage was in the record-breaking temps in Villa Bartolomea last summer. My parents came up last night. My brother and his family arrive this afternoon.

We skied at Alpine Meadows yesterday and the conditions were better than I'd envisioned. There was a fair amount of open intermediate terrain and, although we shared it with the crazy snowboarders, we had a good day skiing as a family. Squaw and Alpine are now co-owned so our passes work at both resorts and there is a shuttle bus connecting the two until the chair is finished next summer.

Now if only it would snow.

Mountain High - Thanksgiving Week Edition

We've just come back from a quick trip to Tahoe. We've not been up since summer and my body was begging for the scent of pine trees in the most unrelenting of ways. This trip was really just to get the house ready for winter. Provisioning. Cleaning. Organizing.

Squaw merged with Alpine Meadows this year and KSL, the owner of both properties, is halfway through a $30M renovation of Squaw. There have been lots of changes.

Here are some highlights:

1. There is signage everywhere.
2. The ticket kiosks and ski school office were demolished and a new skier service center was added to the Olympic House. The site of the former kiosks is wide open now and it's not an icy hike up to the Funitel.
3. The filthy, dingy lower level of the Olympic House was gutted. All the restaurants and shops are gone, and all that remains of the original space is the fireplace and stairs. There is a gorgeous new locker room and a lot of dust as the construction continues. Fire pits are being installed on the KT deck along with private cabanas.
4. The Blue Coyote is gone and the space is in the process of being converted to a new restaurant. That's number three in the spot.
5. The North Face has moved into The Village.
6. The Rainbow Bridge (that weird spiritual shop) has closed, as has All Fired Up and the ice cream shop, which was much better during its first iteration as Ben & Jerry's.
7. Chamois, the pizza place, appears to have lost its liquor license for two weeks. At least that's what the notice hanging in its window says.
8. Starbucks has remodeled. The service is still mediocre.

Very little was open during our stay, just Starbucks, Mamasake and Mountain Nectar. Winter operations begin tomorrow. Liberty broke into tears when she saw Exhibition running Sunday morning, knowing we'd left all our ski gear down in the Bay. Fortunately or unfortunately it was for Squaw ski team members only to get a leg up on the other local race teams.

The drive up was tougher than usual. It was raining in the Bay and we saw four car accidents in the first 15 miles of our drive. It was snowing over the pass and Caltrans was hauling a few cars out of ditches in the Sierras, too. We were rewarded with three days of falling snow and the area mostly to ourselves.