Uncle Mike and Aunt Nie visit Reno!

How fun was our trip to Reno?

SO FUN!
(Yay)

We made it to Reno. After a long ride in the car. It snowed all the way thru the 80 on the way there. Mike and I bought chains in Sacramento but neither one of us have ever had to put them on a car. We had no idea what we were doing. Needless to say that once we put them on, 20 yards later, the left side’s came off. And the right side’s was making a horrific noise. So we picked up the fallen chain (which we tried to put back on but the hook was now bent) and stopped at the next gas station we saw and paid two guys $40.00 to put them on properly. Well worth it, cause we used them all the way down to the hotel in Reno. It took us FOREVER--we had to go something like 70 miles with the chains on, going 30 mph. But when we drove into Reno it was so fun! It was pretty and snowing and we saw the classic Reno sign.

It snowed all day Friday. We went to lunch in downtown at a place that was featured on the show Food Wars, called awful-awful. It was a greasy burger joint – yum. And everyone in Reno was so nice! The girls were given quarters to try the 'hook the stuffed animal game' AND free ice cream. Just for being cute.

Next we stopped by Apryl’s apartment, which is so cute and not nearly as ghetto as she has previously made it out to be. ;) Then back to the hotel for swimming!…Apryl, the girls and I got to go swimming in the snow! That was fun for us. But FREEZING once we were walking back in. Ella was sobbing cause her feet were so cold. I was ready to cry, too, I didn’t blame her one bit. Gretchen got carried inside, so what did she say when she saw Ella crying? “I’m not crying!” Kind of bragging about it. It made me laugh. (Little twerp. :)) I wish we had a picture of that--swimming in the snow--that would have been awesome. Then we had dinner and movie night at Apryl and Colby’s.

(Apryl and Colby intended this apartment to be short term. And I don't think it's even been a year yet? So they still have a LOT of their life in storage. I don't have any idea what that feels like. But it is still VERY HOME-Y. )

(Fun family portraits on the walls)

(Work space and BIG tv, gifted from Auntie Amber and Uncle Dan. And Colby has the hookups to connect his laptop to the tv so hulu works out awesome on there, and that's how they stream their netflix, too.)

(The girls' artwork decorates one wall. It is awesome. They are both fabulous artists.)

Ella is really good at making silly faces. When the camera comes out, the faces start.

Mike and Colby made strogonoff for dinner, and Apryl popped some delicious stove top popcorn. De-licious. AND Mike and Colby got some yummy snacks that lasted us the rest of the weekend. Wafer cookies, chocolate orange bars and chocolate covered pretzels? Can't go wrong with those. We watched last week's episode of community (I heart Reading Rainbow!) and started a movie. Movie night didn't last too long though - I started falling asleep. And we didn't want to make Colby take us back to the hotel at, say, midnight (we weren't comfortable driving in the snow so Apryl and Colby took pity on us and drove us around on Friday and Saturday). So we went back to the hotel for sleep. Which we got a lot of.

Saturday we went to Virginia City (an old mining town) and toured that.

There are lots of fun shops, and old buildings.

Mark Twain lived in Virginia City. Did you know that?

We went through the museum and were overwhelmed with...stuff. I think Mike learned more than me there. But there were some fun things to see, and the girls loved the dolls and clothes and such.

Here we are, learning. They have a video in the back. We learned about...Mark Twain! Yay!

Our first stop was actually the candy store. Guess who wanted to do that? The girls. (And me.)

We each got to choose one special treat. I chose strawberry bon-bons - you know, that hard candy that softens into strawberry chewy deliciousness? Those. Yum. We all enjoyed those, I grabbed a couple handfuls. Mike chose watermelon jelly bellys. Apryl chose sour balls which ended up being cinnamon balls - we were so sad, we grabbed the wrong bag on accident. (But they were still good.) I don't think Colby chose anything. Ella chose a push pop and Gretchen chose a gummy tarantula.

Ella and Mommy. So pretty!
Ella is wearing my hat. It was cold up there!

After the museum we had lunch.

There were books at the tables, which entertained Ella for a few minutes.

Colby's impression of Gretchen. (If you are feeding her something, and she is already chewing a bite of something, she will show you she is chewing on something and that she's not ready to make another bite yet.) TMI?

After lunch, Mike wanted to look at cowboy hats. He probably would have purchased one, if he had a spare $200.00 lying around. Which he doesn't.

"Howdy, ma'am."

And the girls tried on hats, too!

Then some more window shopping

Apryl and my thumbs-up virginia city photo series

Getting ready to head back...notice the sack-of-potatoes-Gretchen in Colby's arms...

Apryl had to stop and get a little gas in the car before we headed back. Even the gas pumps are old in Virginia City! haha

Can you tell I am from Southern California? I saw this jeep with it's own personal shovel attached and had to take a picture. I tried to do it discreetly, while sitting in the car.

Gretchen was all ready to eat her candy (she was told she had to wait until after lunch).

Examining the spider:

Eating the spider:

Showing us devouring her spider:

Laughing at her disgusted sister as she shows her her chewed up spider:

The pretty drive back down to Reno...

After that, Apryl and I went shopping for a short while and we got some crafting stuff for Sunday. Then we went swimming again (but brought flip flops down with us this time!) and had dinner at a fancy restaurant in the hotel, which we didn’t realize was fancy until we got there looking all scroungy. The chairs at the table were all upholstered and the ceiling was painted to look like a sky and has clouds on it and there were lights where it changed colors – kinda like that hotel in vegas – the Venetian? – well the girls thought that was FABULOUS. Gretchen was so tired, she sat and stared at it til she feel asleep and kept saying every couple minutes, “It’s changing” in a sleepy tired mellow voice. It was funny.

Sunday we went to church and then drove out to Lake Tahoe.

It was beautiful, but couldn’t really even walk down to the water cause of all the snow, Ella and Colby and I did for a minute, but that was it. And then my camera battery died. Bummer, huh?

We drove back to the apartment and Colby and Mike made dinner again (yum - thanks, guys!), Apryl and I crafted a little, and we watched Toy Story 3 (I loved it-I hadn’t seen it before). "Evil Dr. Porkchop!" - Gretchen said that in the car on Saturday and had everyone cracking up.

Mike and I got on the road about 9:30 yesterday morning and made it home around 6:30. 9 hours was much better than the 12-1/2 it took us to get up there!

The trees thru the 80 were gorgeous, covered in snow. I was driving so Mike took one with his cell phone.

Everything was so green on the 5.

And the orchards were starting to blossom. Pretty!

We had fun though! The drive, while long, is pretty. We stayed at the Peppermill. Ella loved it–it was pretty and could see the snow and everything. Ella said that the Peppermill and Disneyland are her two favorite places. Yay!