East Coats Tahoe

JDubbs's family has a fabulous family tradition in which I am happy to take part as often as possible: the annual trip to Lake Tahoe. In case you don't know where Lake Tahoe is, it's 50% in California, 50% in Nevada, and 100% heaven. Every year JDubbs's Nana, her five daughters and their families all congregate in Lake Tahoe where we can all relax and reconnect. Here are a couple pictures from previous years in Tahoe.

2006

2008, pregnant with Jax

Some years everyone can make it, some years not, and unfortunately, this was one of those Tahoe-less years for us, but it was for a great reason--Molly and Tom are expecting their baby any minute! So we happily stayed put on the East Coast to await Baby W's arrival.

But there is another part of the tradition that had to continue no matter where we were. It is one that originally could only be performed in Lake Tahoe, but since we have small children and even smaller budgets, I'm not sure when we'll be back out there again. So Papa acquiesced and now we perform The Giving of the Shirts whenever family is gathered: sometimes in the summer, sometimes at a wedding, and this time Jax and Baby W got their shirts at the swinging shindig known as East Coast Tahoe.

JDubbs, Jax and I all wore shirts with Lake Tahoe on them, but they weren't the shirts to which I am referring. In this picture below, Jax is not wearing THE shirt. I bought that for him last year while we were there before he was born!

 Papa distributes shirts to new members of the H family (JDubbs's Mom's side) as they arrive: either by stork or by nuptials. Each family has a color--our shirts are blue--and as babies or husbands or wives arrive, they get a shirt with their family color and the number they are in the family (JDubbs's Papa is 1, Grand-Mere is 2, Nana is 3...) according to when they arrived. So JDubbs may have a higher number than one of his uncles, because he was born before his aunt married him. Get it? Anyway, JDubbs is #11, I am #30, and Jax is offically #35. He got his shirt on Sunday. And Baby W is #36! I love that they're back to back.

So we went to Molly and Tom's for a cookout, enjoyed their new patio along with some food (the ribs Nana and Papa make every year at Tahoe) and cold drinks, and had the ceremonial Giving of the Shirt for Jax and Baby W.



The three of us with our shirts

 Jax is #35 and he has 4 stars because he is in the 4th generation of the family. JDubbs and I each have 3 stars, his parents 2, and his grandmother 1.

He looked so handsome in his Tahoe shirt!

Here we all are! The W family in our blue shirts. If we closed our eyes, we could almost hear the sound of the blue Tahoe water lapping up on the West Shore...Oh no, actually, it was Dug Pond over on West Street.

And don't forget, this was the last get-together with Molly and Tom before the big day. Next time we see them, the baby will be about to make his or her debut! We cannot wait for #36 to be here!

Thanks for such a wonderful tradition! I love being part of it and hope to be back in Tahoe soon!