South Lake Tahoe: With 16 friends, one sister, and four kids.

This past week was a big one for us. We fed a family of seven (my sister's), skied with five members of that family for two days, skied/snowboarded for two more days with 16 friends and friends of friends, and had an "80s Olympic Glory Party" in between the two friend ski days. Needless to say, there were more skiers/riders on Saturday then on Sunday.

The social part of our week started on Wednesday afternoon when my sister arrived with her husband and five kids -- ages 6 -17. My sister is only 6 years older than me but has accomplished a lot. She is a doctor and fantastic mom to five really beautiful and wonderful kids. Wilson and I were lucky because we got to ski with my sister and the four youngest kids on Thursday and Friday at Kirkwood.

Both Thursday and Friday were gorgeous ski days at the resort -- high of 50 degrees but the snow stayed cold. The kids surprised us with how good they have gotten. The 6 year old was landing jumps and grinding boxes at the terrain park. And we took our 13 year old niece, MaryAnn, and 11 year old nephew, Soren, on a double black diamond. Very exciting! Especially, when Wilson and the friends from the ski house took MaryAnn off the cornice at the top of the run. Her bravery and eyes shining like stars have been engraved into my bank of happy memories.
On Friday evening, we had to say goodbye to my sister's family and the ski house began to fill up in earnest. Three folks from our ski house, Mary Parmer Hillier, Justin Bieber (that really is his name), and Brandt Jewell have had or will have their birthdays over this three week period and we celebrated them this past weekend. Justin and Brandt were celebrating the big "3-0" and so we wanted to do something big -- we settled on gourmet cupcakes and general festivities on Friday with a big themed party on Saturday: "80s Olympic Glory".

Throughout the night, Brandt and Sonya were the announcers of a series of mis-shapen competitions: ski boot races, solo flip -cupping, and of course, same sex ice dancing. We had four "countries" for the competitions: Red, White, Blue, and Stars. The Red team was composed of the women from the house, the Blue and White teams were male, and the Stars were a guest team of a friend from law school, Joel Cohen, his brothers and Joel's dad who must be in his sixties."80s Olympic Glory" was complete with costumes of a lot of USA gear and neon spandex. We had bobsledders, nordic skiers, and of course, ice dancers. But the best costumes and performances were: Brandt, as the torch, and his slender wife, Sonya, who as the "torch bearer" actually carried Brandt into our opening ceremony.

The games played out with a lot of laughter and competition and surprisingly the women's team of Red took the majority of the Golds. But the big Winner of the games was Joel's dad when Joel's brother spun him around in a way that demonstrated a surprising amount of athleticism as well as the extent of his "youth."

From a 60-year old executing "ice" dancing lifts to a 13-year old dropping a cornice, this past week reminded me of the eternity of youth in all of us.

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