Taste of Summer (And Wine)!

I am several CLE credits and one glorious sunburn richer than I was on Wednesday. On Wednesday I left for Lake Chelan for a CLE conference. It was 80-90+ degrees outside which pretty much meant that I got to travel to a hot place just to spend all my time freezing indoors. A/C is my enemy and is the reason I packed as if I was about to endure three chilly days of fall weather despite being in a sunny, warm location. Despite my chattering teeth and grasping cup after cup of piping hot tea to stay warm, I managed to learn lots of new things AND fill up several note pages of ball-point doodles.

My husband and kids joined me Thursday evening to make a vacation out of it and we ended up staying in Lake Chelan all weekend. We stayed at the most amazing resort on the lake (which is where the CLE is every year). I've been to this CLE for several years now but this is the first time I got to bring my family....and it was amazing! Well, I'm not gonna lie...."vacations" with kids are not vacations. A vacation with kids is pretty much just paying a lot of money to watch your kids throw tantrums in new places. And tantrums there were:

Not happy because I won't let him go in the pool by himself:

This place is awful! Seriously!

Water park torture:

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Before my family joined me, I enjoyed almost two full days of me-time (and CLE time). In between talks I went on as many runs as my runner's heart desired whenever I wanted. I logged six miles on Wednesday and five miles on Thursday. And five more again Friday. This was my view:

It was perfect.

My conference ended Friday. I tossed my CLE materials into my room and immediately joined my family down by one of the several lake view pools. Where Jon promptly had a meltdown.

We then moved to the beach where my husband and I got to chill in lounger chairs and "supervise" the kids playing in sand.

Water my feet, slaves!

Jacob's happy place

My three beach amigos

This is the gorgeous lakefront. The buildings in the back are part of our hotel. In fact, I can see our balcony!

We might as well have been in Hawaii. The weather was hot, the beach was amazing, and the amenities were so pampery. The only thing NOT Hawaii about this place was the water. The lake was freaking cold. But that didn't stop the kids. In fact, every morning we woke up to the same scene--kids ready and anxious to hit the beach/pool (except for Jon who, you will notice, is having a tantrum):

On Saturday we went to a water slide park.There were slides for all ages and abilities, a GIANT hot tub, kiddie pools with splash park toys, and a lazy river. The kids were in heaven.

I mostly tended to a crabby, under-napped toddler while the big boys played. My incentive for taking baby duty was that we were going to head up to my favorite winery/restaurant for dinner. I had been wine tasting there earlier in the week and had sampled ALL of their white wines- a peachy pinot, a bubble gum colored rose, and so many other delicious white wines (my favorite! I don't have a taste for red yet, despite my best efforts). I was dreaming of peachy pinot and their perfection meatballs all day. And when we drove up there later in the day to discover that they had a strict "reservation only" policy on Saturdays, I may have shed a tiny tear, or two.

We made the best of it by hanging out in their tasting room, touring the GORGEOUS grounds, and feeding the fish in the koi pond. If I could go back in time and re-do my wedding, I'd get married there in a heart beat. GORGEOUS. That's the only word that went through my mind for the hour we were there.

But I still haven't recovered from missing out on a second serving of their meatballs. It was just ..... GORGEOUS. I can't think of any other word to describe this heavenly piece of real estate. The fact that wine grapes are grown here only makes it more perfect.

And then we had to leave because our children started a body-slamming wrestling match inside the tasting room.

We made it home later than hoped tonight thanks to hellish traffic which turned our 3.5 hour drive into a 5.5 hour drive. My body may be in Seattle, but my heart is still in Chelan....eating meatballs and drinking pinot grigio.