Happy Birthday Brandie!

We got up with Sophie's early Saturday morning feeding and departed in the midst of a big rain storm for Reno. On the way we added some minutes to our OnStar and gave the Scis a call. It was good to talk to Anthony, and the speaker phone combined with the sound quality made it really fun for everyone to participate (Sophie included).

It was snowing pretty heavily in the mountains, chains weren't required but traffic was only going 20-25 mph over Donner Summit. We made it to Brandie's cousin's soccer game just outside of Reno around 11. It was raining there, and quite windy. After the soccer game Mary and Joe treated everyone to lunch at On the Border, then we went over to their house to rest a bit before heading up to the lake. Eula got to run around a bit in their backyard as well, which was nice since she'd been stuck in the back of the wagon all morning.

Chains were required up Spooner Summit, but we didn't have to put ours on because of the Passat's 4-Motion. It handled the snow without a hitch, we only slid a little pulling into the driveway of our rental at the lake. Our last experience driving in a Sierra snowstorm was quite different (in the Jetta last year, sliding our way over Echo Summit), so we were both very pleased with the wagon's performance.

The Tahoe area ended up getting 16 inches Saturday night, and our power went out repeatedly (we happened to be up at 3:30am when it went out the first time). Our favorite breakfast place ended up being without power all Sunday morning, so we made do with breakfast in the rental. Aunt Kathie came over after lunch and Jesse shortly after, and we had a nice relaxing afternoon visiting with them while it continued to snow outside. For dinner we went to Beacon, a restaurant right on the lake at Camp Richardson (near where we saw the salmon running last fall). It was really something to see the lake in the middle of a storm, and dinner was excellent.

Sophie was up again very early Monday (3:30am), "talking" to the track lighting we had left on a very dim setting so we could see to put her pacifier back in. The power seemed to be surging, causing the lights to pulsate a little, which she was enjoying quite a bit. Later on, after a takeout breakfast from Sprout's we showered and started packing up the car.

It was supposed to snow all day again Monday, but we caught a break in the weather and made it to Sacramento before it started raining. Sophie has apparently started teething so she cried for about 3 hours before she finally fell asleep in the car. She must have really worn herself out, because she didn't wake up again until we were home!

Please drop a comment to wish Brandie her best birthday ever! Click here to see pictures from the trip, unfortunately we didn't get any snow pics!