For my birthday last week, I had the wonderful opportunity and privilege to use a friend's beautiful cabin in Tahoe. I had already pre-scheduled 5 consecutive days off on my calendar so I packed up the kids and dog and headed up for a mini-escape to the gorgeous land of Lake Tahoe.
I only brought my point and shoot camera and my Iphone. I know. I KNOW! What kind of photographer goes to Lake Tahoe and bring a P&S!? Probably the same moron who goes to Paris and also brings a P&S. That would be me, folks. Wile E. Coyote over here..... But, unlike Paris, I didn't regret it this time. I hardly even busted out the P&S except for a fun kayaking trip with the kids. The rest was a small handful of Iphone shots. I decided to just ENJOY my kids, ENJOY my time. And relax. I was way overdue for some "sit and do nothing" relaxing. Which, of course, I didn't really get since I had two crazy kids and a rambunctious puppy with me but I did get some downtime in the evenings to just chill and read which was just absolutely LOVELY. We also were able to enjoy sauntering post-dinner walks around the neighborhood and game-time on the deck. Fabulous.
The one big bummer of the trip was my poor pup coming down with some crazy, funky, rare disorder late one evening after all the vet hospitals were closed and no one within a 2 hr drive was open for emergencies.... It was VERY scary and my sensitive kids were freaking out.... Kooper's left eye was sinking into his skull and seemingly rotating into the back of his head. The whole left side of his face went droopy (he looked like a stroke victim) and his third eyelid covered his entire eyeball. Let's just say it was AWFUL to look at. I was frantically taking pictures with my iphone to text them to a dear friend who is an emergency veterinarian. She was WONDERFUL and dropped everything to help me out and calm me down and walk me through it. I am forever indebted to her. I ended up being at the local emergency vet hospital the next morning (on my birthday no less!) bright and early as soon as they opened. Turns out he has a case of Horner's Syndrome. My birthday plans to send him to the local doggie daycare so the kids and I could hang out at the club's pool and beach (no dogs allowed) were obviously thwarted and we weren't able to leave Kooper's side or go anywhere because we were so worried about him and I couldn't fathom leaving his side. I even ended up having canned soup I had brought as my bday dinner and no cake in sight.... Kinda sucky. :(
Having said that, the next morning Kooper woke up looking (and feeling) ten times better and since it's not contagious he was able to go to the doggie daycare (Truckee-Tahoe Kennels, HIGHLY recommend them, the owner is AMAZING and the staff is awesome!) so I declared it a RE-DO BIRTHDAY DAY! And we pretended it was my birthday and we did beach, pool, dinner out, cake etc... And it ended up being a fantastic day so all was well in the world again!
We enjoyed another half day in Tahoe before hitting the long road home (6+ hr drive). The kids were pretty awesome travelers overall and I came back feeling fairly refreshed and so glad we had taken the time to actually get away and enjoy a much needed change of scenery.
Here's just a few snapshots. REMEMBER, POINT AND SHOOT CAMERA AND NO EDITING!!!
Taken with my Canon S95.
