One year ago we decided to take a chance.

Life is full of “chance” when you decide to make good on your “I wish” list. Like when I wished one day to run a half marathon. And then thought it would be fun to do my first triathlon. Or when later I wished I could do an Ironman 70.3 and again pushing on to run my first ultra trail race.

I wished to take a family holiday. You know, like in the 50s, when families packed up and headed to some lake resort for 4-6 weeks?

Yeah.. I know. How old-fashioned of us. People don’t do those types of things as a family any more.

But I had the wish, and finally the wish became a question of:

If not now? When?

We grabbed a couple thousand dollars of our savings and sent it off to a perfect stranger. We decided to make an investment. In our family. In travel. In our summer. In Lake Tahoe.

We paid for a house in Tahoe Vista, CA, only two miles from King’s Beach, CA. Only .5 miles from the Tahoe Rim Trail. And only a block from single track hiking and biking trails in the deep pine forests of the Sierra Nevada.

Chris received the OK to work remotely from California, we packed up our dog, our toys, and only the necessary clothing and come high summer, we hit the road.

Chris and I were like kids in a candy shop. We had endless new places to explore. Views that knocked you off your feet. We had beautiful blue waters, the world’s best sand beaches, and now (being away from social and work driven demands) we had time.

Time for hiking.

Hiking at Echo Lake, CA

Time for playing with each other.

Homemade bow and arrows.

Time for trail running.

Trail running the Flume Trail, Lake Tahoe, NV

Time to paddle and explore beaches.

Family paddle and swimming time at Sand Harbor State Park.

Time to catch Crawdads and learn to cook them.

Catching crawfish in the rocks at Speedboat Beach, Lake Tahoe. And moving rocks to make a “cage” for them.

Time for mountain biking. And pine cone collecting.

Biking the trails near home.

Time.

Every New Year’s Eve, before we tackle a list of new goals for the up and coming year, we sit down and review all that we did. The best and worst of 2015. Unequivocally, we decided that going to Lake Tahoe was the best decision we had made.

What was the best gift we could give our family? It turns out the gift of time was the best gift we could give.

And now I’ll ask you, at the end of 2016, what will be the best thing you did for your family?

For the next few weeks we will be sharing our favorite adventures from the Lake Tahoe area, join us!

Should we jump in or not?