By A few weeks back, we adventured to Lake Tahoe and had a fun and memorable family vacation!
It’s safe to say this tripĀ was full of adventure. From the second we left til the time we got home (which was technically twice- we’ll get to that later…) it was full of thrill all around. I think it’s safe to say every vacation involving kids is guaranteed to be fullĀ of thrill but this one was extra special.
Let’s start from the beginning. We had booked our cabin through VRBO (a rental company) and had a smooth process all around, until the day of our trip. Kids loaded, all 209175 items packed (including just about anything and everything for babies, toddlers, kids, and adultsĀ for any unplanned surprises- you know how it goes)… we’re on the road and about half an hour in (we live about 1 1/2 hours from Tahoe), I get a call that our cabin is snowed in and there’s absolutely no way to access it (insert all sad, angry, and whhhyyyy emoji faces!!!!!) We pull over, break the news to the kids (that went well…), and spend a few hours on the phone trying to figure out the next best step. We end up finding cabin #2 about 15 min away from our original cabin. It wasn’t as nice but it had a few of the important things on our checklist (fireplace, jacuzzi, two-story… these were Ella’s requests) as we weren’t about to turn around and make the drive home after a much anticipated trip. We pull into the driveway, walk through the door, and what do you know- the power is OUT! I turn to Trav and say “you’ve got to be kidding me…” (I don’t know if you guys have caught onto it yet- but I’m the fiery, say it like it is, freak out one, and he’s the rational, stay calm, everything will work itself out one). We wait it out in the cabin for a few hours to see if things will change, meanwhile on the phone with our rental company trying to see what we can do, while reassuring our kids everything will be fine. 6 o’clock rolls around and it’s starting to get dark outside. The power was still out and we knew at this point if things didn’t change quick, we’d be getting cold and there would literally beĀ nothing for us to do inside (that would be vacation worthy). We decided to get in our car and make the trek back home. We re-booked our vacation for the following week (in our original cabin) as they had given us that option originally. The kids were definitely bummed but we tried making up for it by keeping them out of school the next day and spoiling them with a few fun activities. Ella definitely tried milking it and would try to get her way by starting everything out with “Since we couldn’t go on vacation, Can I…….” lol – she is one smart cookie.
Fast forward to week two…
We drove up to our snowy cabin and noticed it was still snowed in (see first picture below). I was dying on the inside. Well, come to find out, we were told we could access the house from the garage and were given a passcode to open the garage (Rewind to week 1- we could have stayed there!!! We thought the only way you could access it was from the outside)……..The passcode was incorrect. We tried about a million times and were once again on hold with the company trying to figure out the new solution. We got the new code, got into our house (FINALLY!) and…. wait for it…. the house was a mess. A disaster. The house cleaners had definitely not been there since the last people who had stayed. By this time, I was LIVID, absolutely livid. I couldn’t believe that after all we had been through, they hadn’t takenĀ the time to ensure everything was perfect for our stay. Trav calls and the lady on the other side of the phone says “Oh yeah….. looks like we missed the house cleaners on that one”…. really?! You just missed the house cleaners??!! Like- no big deal!
I’ll control myself now. I could go on and on because it was almost comical how horrible of an experience it was (not to mention the over chlorinated jacuzzi, terrible wifi {I could live with that- it was more just frustrating}, TV that wouldn’t work), etc. I wish I could say that I laughed, but I didn’t.
What’s funny (and why I wanted to share this) is I bet you couldn’t guess all of this was happening behind the scenes while you all were following along with our pictures/videos of our stay. And while we honestly did have a great time while we were there, there are always a few bumps in the road (whether it’s unplanned circumstances like these or just the plain ol’ craziness that comes with traveling with kids) that are sometimes overlooked by all the pretty imagesĀ shared.
Overall we had an absolute blastĀ sledding together, ice skating, drinking “coffee” round the fire pit, snowball fights in the snow, etc. – memories we’re had/shared and we definitely don’t regret taking the trip altogether. OH- and we got about half of our stay knocked off the price (SCORE!)
Below are a few snapshots from our time together…
