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Theresa O’Connor / Treasa Ní Chonchúir

A large body of water is under a clear blue sky. Snow-capped mountains line the far shore.

Tahoe

, , Eryn, and took the girls up to Lake Tahoe for a very long weekend away from school—SFUSD had both Monday and Tuesday off, for Presidents’ Day and Chinese New Year, respectively. We stayed in a lovely AirBnB in Homewood, on the western shore of the lake.

Two women and a girl, all in snow gear, pose for a selfie. The woman in a lavender snow jacket is taking the selfie. The other woman is in mint green, and the child is in pink, and has long hair. The child is making a very silly face at the camera.
With Eryn and EJ out in the snow

Eryn went snowboarding, Andy went skiing, and the girls took two days of snowboarding lessons.

EJ snowboarding (video by Eryn)

The view of the night sky up there is exceptional. Unfortunately Eryn didn’t bring her & , so we made do with our phone cameras. I captured a pretty decent shot of Orion with my .

A child is standing on a snowboard. She’s wearing a purple ski jacket and black ski pants. The constellation Orion glows brightly in a dark night sky. There are dark evergreen trees on either side of the constellation.
L: EJ on her snowboard (photo by Eryn)
R: Orion and the Great Orion Nebula between the trees

It snowed all day on Monday. The morning was filled with snowball fights and the creation of an epic snowman. Then and the twins came by and we all went out for frisbee, snowballs, and a wander.

Three women and two girls pose with satisfied expressions next to a snowman they’ve just completed. The snowman is wearing a Raiders hat.
A snowman and his creators

We had planned to start the drive home Tuesday morning, but the snow kept falling all through Monday night and into Tuesday morning. They closed the Donner Pass and, just like that, we were snowed in. Fortunately we each had entertainment options. (EJ played Minecraft, while I curled up near the fire with a beer and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil.)

Our hosts were understanding and let us stay an additional night. We spent Wednesday morning struggling to get the cars out of the driveway, and managed to get on the road a bit after 11. It was very slow going—traffic was limited to 30 mph due to . We stopped for dinner on the other side of the mountains, and we finally made it back to the city around .