Reno- Part 1

What a weekend!!! Oct 8-13. We have anticipated this trip for good and bad reasons for quite awhile now. Josh's cousin was getting married in the Reno, Nevada Temple. Josh has always felt it important to support his extended family. (Something I don't have much of.) I found it to be an adjustment for me and hard to understand why we had to travel far distances, make a huge sacrifice, pay lots of money and tote along kids to the "extended" family, but now instead of the argument, I just have to accept it, and we have actually had some great vacations. Including this one!!

We were extra lucky with this vacation. We have some good friends that live in Reno. They lived by us in our old house, but moved from there long before we did. We stayed with them a few years back, and they graciously said we could stay with them again. We are so grateful to Mark and Karen to invite us into their home. We are so glad for friends that we can sit and talk with, stay up late with, and just act like time hasn't gone on, even when we haven't seen them in over 3 years. We are so lucky. Karen sent us a link to their weather page before we left. It said 20% chance of snow on Friday and Saturday. What??

We packed a few extra long sleeved shirts, but what else could we do??? We left for Reno at 7:00pm Wednesday evening after Josh had gotten home from work. We turned on a movie for the kids and they were sleeping by 8:30. Just like I had planned. =) They girls woke up a bit at about midnight as we were passing over the Hoover Dam, but fell back to sleep. At about 2:45am we couldn't drive anymore. We were exhausted. We had made it to Beatty and pulled behind a gas station with 2 other truckers and a couple of cars. We slept until 5:45. Holy cow, 3 hours. We quickly got back on the road. The kids slept until 8:00 and I pulled out the granola bars and donuts for breakfast. They were great in the car and soon enough we were in Fernley, NV where Josh cousin Trevor lives with his family. We called them and met them for an early lunch. It was great to see them and their 2 daughters. We left again for the final 45 minute drive into Sparks and we arrived at Mark and Karen's house at 12:45.

Karen took their daughter Taylor out of school at 1:00 that day so that she could come home and play with the girls. She is in 2nd grade like Kylee. It didn't take them too long to get re-acquainted and they were off and playing. We were so tired from the long drive that we just stayed at the house all day. It was great to talk, relax, and enjoy being with friends.

FRIDAY WAS GREAT!!! It is still hard to believe, but at about 10 am it actually started snowing. The girls have been in snow before they just don't remember, and this was a first for Kruz. I was hesitant at first to let them go outside, but then we just threw on sweatshirts and they had a great time. They played outside in the backyard for awhile...here are some pictures.

We then left and went across the street to where Aunt Melanie and Uncle Reed live. G & G Hough and Davey had arrived and we wanted to see Treena also. (the bride) It continued to snow and the kids had fun being in the courtyard having snowball fights.

This is what our car looked like when we left there at 12:30 to go run a couple of errands. (It had been snowing non-stop for 2 1/2 hours).We got home at 1:30 and ate lunch and put Kruz to bed and the kids went back outside. This is what we found.

We had the big Pre-Wedding dinner that night and it was fun to see everyone. We got back to the house, tucked the kids in bed and after some chit-chatting with Mark and Karen, we headed to bed too. We were tired and we had a LONG day ahead of us for tomorrow.