Monday Motivation: Birthday Weekend Recap

Gluttony is not a secret vice.

~Orson Welles

Where do I start? I totally thought I would post a short Friday 5, maybe a picture for Saturday and do a full Sunday Summary....uh, nope WAY too busy enjoying birthday weekend. So here is the recap. May I just say returning to business as usual today was tough. Literally had a 5 hour meeting me 12 men and myself. How these men did not have to pee this whole time is beyond me. I had to excuse myself from the meeting. And am I the only one who gets hungry at lunch time? 10:00 start time, 2:30 finish time. Unfortunately by the time we finished I was D-O-N-E and "treated" myself not only to In-n-Out, but opted for the chocolate shake. Learned a bunch, but not how to "hold it," still working on that. Without further adieu, here's the weekend recap:

Friday

• 5:30 am swim practice-sprints
• 10:00 French Toast breakfast...so yummy
• Sometime that afternoon we did a lovely short hike to Eagle Lake across from Emerald baby. This is such touristy hike, but we had never done it and we had a short afternoon to fill. What was great is that there was so much snow, that manuvering around to the opposite  side of the lake scrambling over rocks got us some much needed quiet time for lunch.
• Our cabin was great, with a lovely view of the Nevada side of Kingsbury Grade
• Sushi Friday! All you can eat sushi Friday, made to order. Wish I took pictures, but alas, I was so hungry I only remembered after we were done stuffing ourselves eating.

Saturday-Hang Out Day

• While we were waiting to be seated at a late breakfast, my friend wondered allowed why we didn't book massages on this trip? GOOD QUESTION! I love my iPhone, last minute massages BOOKED!
• French Toast, eggs, toast, bacon, HOT CHOCOLATE....ugh, breakfast had a little too much grease, but yummy

We took a little walk until we found a secluded part of the Carson River and set up camp while our spouses walked the river to flyfish. We drank Shock Top Raspberry beer, ate gummy bears, gummy worms, beef jerky and read magazines. Pretty delightful.

After hanging by the river we walked a couple outdoor markets before we got out massages. I picked up a cute pair of earrings that if you look closely you can see them in my dinner picture. Massage was wonderful. It was a small very unassuming place, but the sports massage was perfect. Dinner was at Riva Restaurant on the water. Free Valet, but I think they should comp the corkage fee once the dinner price hits a certain number, among the 4 of us we did some damage to our pocket books. A Menu: Caprese Shooters-strawberry, tomato, basil, mozzarella and balsamic. I have heard of this recipe with watermelon, but the strawberries were a brilliant addition. Salad sucked, but I enjoyed some of my husband's extraordinary french onion au gratin soup. My main course was probably the most gluttonous dish I have ever had. I have done steak and lobster, but this was 2...T-W-O 6 oz lobster tails, a 7 oz bacon wrapped filet, garlic mash and perfectly prepared asparagus. The price was listed as "market price" and that old saying about "if you have to ask you can't afford it"....well that was kinda true. We all laughed so hard at the price when it came. That was the wine talking. Good thing birthdays are only 1x per year and I worked a little overtime the week before. Speaking of wine, we enjoyed an amazing bottle (that we brought) from a winery along the Northern California coast called 10 Degrees. It is a pinot with a great story, read it HERE. For dessert we ordered and shared 3 different desserts: Coffee and chocolate ice cream with Skor bar bits-delicious, lemon and blueberry cheese case with blueberry sauce and candied lemon zest, Champagne sabayon with fresh berries-strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry. The sabayon was a little thinner than sabayons that I have had, but still wonderfully delicious. Gluttony at its best Saturday night.

Sunday
I was pretty bacon'd out so we went with orangep-carrot juice and oatmeal from Jamba juice. We picked up sandwiches from the grocery and headed on our "big" hike. This is usually a moderately difficult 1000 ft elevation gain hike on a well maintained trail. Well, it's been a bit cold in tahoe and most of our trail was covered in snow or was soggy. At the .75 mile marker that was flooded with ice cold run off. While we only had to walk through about 30 yards of 2 ft deep water, it was so cold that it was actually painful. Crying, whinning, stinging kind of painful. Then we got to walk through a quarter mile that looked like this.

At the top we saw this:

Then we dropped down 1.5 miles to get here

Where we saw this

I wish I took more pictures. I laided out on a rock and napped, read magazines and panic'd that we wouldn't figure out the way back. The trail was so super snow covered. It took us 1 hour 40 minutes in, only 1 hr 18 was moving time to go 3.5 miles. We had to stop and take shoes on and off for the water crossing, stop at the top of snowy hills to figure out which way to go, and just rest on occasion. It took 1 hr 30+ minutes out. It was a gratifying hike, I am glad we had the creek overflow crossing and snow to make it more challenging.

We hit Mel's drive in on the way home where I realized I do not need anymore bacon (again). I do however need more chocolate banana milkshakes. The bomb!

I get the best birthday trips

Thankful Three

1. My husband, 10x over I love him the most
2. My in-laws. Facetime via iPad2 to hear see and hear my kids sing Happy Birthday was such an awesome gift
3. For great friends to spend the weekend with: Thanks SB and BD, you're the best!