Truckee Life This Week

The past week has been a whirlwind of activities, or at least it felt like that...I'm not actually sure we did all that much. It just felt like a lot because we are not used to hanging out with other people. My friend Leah came to Truckee with her family for a week. They rented a cabin not too far from our campground and we spent lots of time hanging out, sharing meals, hiking, swimming at the lake, playing video games, and building puzzles. It was totally crazy, because there are even more kids than there were during our last cabin vacation two years ago....she had a baby in November, so now we each have 3 kids. Our previous two cabin meet-ups took place in Pennsylvania as they have family in Philadelphia. Those cabin trips were characterized by cool, gloomy weather, with some epic rainstorms and flooding. We spent a lot of time trying to light wet campfires. This time, the weather was very dry (no fires allowed here!), but varied widely in temperature. It was 90 degrees last week one day, and last night, it dipped to 35! It's so funny to me that we have our down coats and bathing suits out at the same time. They left today after we had one last playdate at the Truckee Regional Park. It is cool and partly cloudy with gusty wind, and her baby fell asleep in my arms while I was carrying him around the playground. I was surprised at how fast he warmed up to all of us and let him hold him. Her almost-four-year-old has grown so much since we were last together. He said so many hilarious things and was fun to play with. Her oldest is just a little older than Marko, and plays very well with both Marko and Laurel. My kids really wanted to learn how to play Dungeons and Dragons and while we were not able to get a full game going, he did help them with character development and understanding how it works. It is amazing to me that Leah and I have been friends for 17 years, that we have all these kids now, that our spouses are so similar and get along well and that we managed to pull off another transcontinental reunion, despite the pandemic. 

Last week, M took our Yukon in to the dealer in Reno to check the AC, which we realized wasn't working when we started driving in hot places. We also wanted to make sure the brakes were ok after all the steep grade towing. Due to a number of things we ended up not having our car back for 10 days! Luckily we had a rental and this did not put a dent in any of our plans, although the kids complained mightily about having to ride smushed together in the backseat. He is on his way to Reno now to get the car back. 

I was finally able to connect with our homeschool evaluator and mailed our portfolios off to her from the Truckee post office. We'll have a zoom meeting where she will interview the kids and then hopefully send off a positive report. Everyone wants to carry on with homeschooling for the next school year and I already have our books and materials picked out.

It feels very quiet all of a sudden without our friends around, but we're eagerly awaiting the arrival of our next visitors, my sister and her boyfriend!! They also rented a cabin nearby, and we look forward to lots of fishing, swimming and boating together.