James woke up the Saturday before Labor Day with ants in his pants for an adventure. He wasn't sure when his work would come in but he didn't want to sit around until it happened so off he went to plan something fun for our family. After a few failed ideas, we packed our bags in mere minutes and per his prodding packed the kids in the car for a last-minute trip to Big Bear. Did we have a place to stay? No. Did we have any plans? Or know anything about Big Bear? Nope. And was it a holiday weekend meaning everything was booked solid? Yup. The planner in me was dying, literal heart-attack status as we were driving up the mountain imagining spending the night in our minivan, but James kept reminding me that great memories are built on spontaneity and this trip was going to be magical. (Or so he hoped! Spoiler alert: he was right!)
I called 13 places and was majorly stressed and discouraged to find there were no rooms at any of the hotels in the area, and even the 14th place originally said they were booked for the weekend, but after begging for mercy the nice man must have heard the desperation in my voice and said they actually did have just one unit available--a 3-bedroom condo that wasn't being rented because the cable connection was temporarily broken. Yep, no TV was the only "problem" with this incredible place, can you believe it? To me that's even better! I jumped on that offer in no time and to make the deal sweeter, they slashed the price of the condo in half for our "inconvenience"! Before finding a place I'll be honest I was having a hard time being chill, but after that it was smooth sailing. Everything was perfect. And I mean it. This simple and last-minute vacation to the mountains may have been one of our favorite family trips we've ever taken.
There are so many good pictures chronicling our time together and you'll see them all below, but we unanimously decided that the best thing we did was go to a super-secluded area in the mountains late at night to look at the stars. I've had some pretty fantastic stargazing moments in my life but this was out of this world. There were literally millions of stars in the sky, the constellations were bright and easily identifiable, the Milky Way was a thick cloud running through the middle of the sky, Mars burned red, we saw Jupiter set, the shooting stars were plentiful and the wonder in all of our eyes was brighter still. Especially for city-dwellers such as ourselves and that rarely see a star or two in our LA sky, this was heaven. I know that the image of my four babies laying on top of my minivan searching and squealing and smiling are just as good as a printed picture of the event--I could never forget it!
James made it clear that if his crazy plan went haywire he would take the fall, but since it went so well he definitely took all the credit...and rightly so! I couldn't stop thanking him for pushing our family out of our planner-planner comfort zone. This was a weekend to remember.
We started at the Alpine Slide, which was a recommendation from our neighbor who saw us packing up the car. T and Quinn were excited, Ever and Coco were nervous, but all six of us went down the concrete mountain and loved it. I love trying new things as a family.
^^^Cora's face before the ski lift started moving ^^^
^^^Cora's face after the ski life started moving^^^
Slide with a view!
We lucked out in a million ways but one of them was that our home base was right next door to Snow Summit. On the night we arrived they had a free family event right outside our door, complete with free face painting, jump house and an outdoor movie. And who was the first person in that face painter's chair? Cora Nicole!
Quinn is a ladybug unicorn and Cora is a pink and purple unicorn!
The boys both opted for arm paint, getting so big so fast.
I'm a sucker for sunsets.
Our family is forever memorialized in the Grizzly Cafe thanks to James' business card and a lot of tape.
We spent three hours swimming in the pool and had it all to ourselves, just the way we like it!
On our last morning in Big Bear Everett was feeling sentimental and wanted pictures of everything. Seriously, EVERYTHING! We snapped away as we adventured our way home. This was the place we stayed and it reminded us exactly of our home in Stanford. Escondido Village for life!
When there is no snow, Snow Summit turns into an adventure basecamp and my kids were allllllll over it. At first we only bought a ticket for T because Ev was nervous and we thought Quinn was too young, but within minutes Quinn was begging us to do it as well and Ever followed suit. They ended up having the best time and rock climbed, zip-lined, and jumped to their hearts content.
The siblings took a turn watching Cora bounce, bounce, bounce.
We took the giant ski lift to the top of Snow Summit and while it made me super nervous that one of the kids were going to fall it was so beautiful! We hiked around and ate some snacks and then took that giant ski life right back down.
I love how much Everett cherished this vacation. He's such a sweet boy and having our whole family together was everything to him. It didn't matter what we were doing, he was convinced it was the greatest and was devastated it would have to come to an end. I wish I could hang out with him in the mountains all the time.
The two scaredies rode with me on the way down the mountain...and it was not as bad when we were taking funny selfies.
One last stop on the way out of town was a picture of our T with Talmadge Street. Sure, they added an extra d but our Talmage was so excited to see something so close to his actual name.
Thanks Big Bear, for the greatest Labor Day the Wigs have ever known. And thanks James for taking us there!
