Hello April-Need vacation from vacation

Hello peeps. I am sorry for the long break in posts but this broad was on a week long vacation in Lake Tahoe and required a couple days before and a couple days after to get back to normal. This vacation was well, tiring. We got a sweet deal on a condo in North Lake Tahoe for the last week of March and thought "why the hell not". Knowing we may get bored just hanging out with our kids we somehow convinced my parents, whom are allergic to snow, to go along with us; add in my 25 year old brother home from a school break and BAM a full family vacation.
Our vacations when I was a kid generally involved the oil business. My dad owns an oil related company and we saw beautiful places like Taft, Ca. If it wasn't a business trip then it was visiting family members that didn't reside in Utah with us. Sadly a vast majority of the Swenson/Padilla crew live in furiously lame places. Small towns in Washington, Houston, Tx (sorry Texans but that place is awful), Corona, Ca, Mountain Home, Idaho etc. I love my parents but we definitely didn't summer in Hawaii. Scott and I hope to give our kids a large scope of travel memories. We've realized that since Aiden is the oldest he will have the weakest travel scrapbook since we were busy and less affluent when he bounced into our lives. Needless to say we feel as if we are starting to run out of quality time with our son because every year he gets less attached to us and it is mildly depressing.
I pictured this trip like so: Sitting around a big oak dining table eating warm pancakes, followed by hours of snowman building (our kids had never seen snow before this trip), ending our days sipping hot cocoa while playing board games. Stop laughing.
Now that you've heard my Clark W Griswold expectations let me tell you how it really went down. For starters my fabulous best friend and biggest "supporter" Alicia (my cousin) was already betting that we'd kill each other before the end of the vacation so imagine her lack of surprise when she got a frantic phone call before we'd even left my driveway. My dad (a taller grumpier version of moi) and I got into an argument regarding the impending blizzard that if timed correctly we would be driving through. I assumed that he was being dramatic since he really didn't want to go to the snow (a seasonal symptom that he moved away from in 1992). It is safe to say things didn't start well.
We headed north at 1030 (the fight caused us to miss our desired 10am departure time) and drove in lovely weather through a large portion of northern California. Then we passed through Auburn. We stopped at a gas station to let a fussy Sophie get out of her car seat and allow everyone else to use the potty. Scott and my Dad decided to play it by ear on whether or not to even open the boxes of tire chains for our 2 wheel drive Southern weather lovin' trucks. After piling back in the car and heading back up the highway we see the beginnings of beautiful white, fluffy snow. Followed by more snow. Lots of snow. Piles of snow.
Suddenly with only 2 hours left in our trip traffic halts. It seemed every stinking idiot in the state was headed towards Lake Tahoe. We see lights flashing warning that chains are going to be required and inspected ahead. We pull over and after reading instructions and exchanging the occasional irritated sigh and curse word the chains went on (it had started heavily snowing).
IT TOOK 5 HOURS TO GO 120 MILES. No I didn't stutter.
I'd like to say now that I have fully apologized for the complete and utter nervous breakdown that I unleashed on my husband and children while trapped in our car appropriately named Chevy Avalanche. Snow began to pile so high on the sides of the road that I started to feel like we were trapped. Our lovely little Sophie June had begun to fully freak out in the back seat and Aiden and I had to switch seats. The panic attack came on slowly as I (a sufferer of claustrophobia) sat trapped between two car seats in the back seat of a truck. I started having serious visions of piles of snow falling from the mountains beside us and burying our car. I counted granola bars and capri suns and began making plans for rationing them out. Let me tell you, it is an ominous thing to pass a half buried sign disclaiming DONNER PASS while you're in a snow covered nightmare. I would also like to mention my husband is a descendant of that damn family.
After hours of driving 2 miles an hour we approached the town of Truckee which I knew was close to our destination. Only 20 miles. Took another hour. During the break in the traffic and snow the two leaders of our group, Scott and Big Daddy, made the absolutely absurd decision to remove the chains so that we could drive a bit faster since it was now pitch dark out and we thought the road ahead would be clear. This decision was quickly regretted as we slid all over the icy mountain roads. We also couldn't find anywhere to pull over to put the dang things back on because every building, hotel, parking lot etc was under at least 12 ft of snow. My breakdown increased once all 3 kids had fallen asleep and I was able to "discuss" my feeling of impending doom. The husband (who had remarkably remained quite calm during this excursion) had grown tired of listening to what I assume were my dramatic cries in the back seat.
Soon we saw the first street that we needed to turn on approaching on our cars navigational system declaring 0.5 miles and began getting very excited. I had once labored for 16 hours on pitocin with no pain meds and that was still a better day than this had become.
Don't worry it got worse...
We were about to make the final left turn onto the street that our cabin was located when our back tires spun out and got stuck. Picture this: My hysterical self shivering outside the car door holding a flashlight (I chose a simple hoodie as I am an idiot from Bakersfield that had forgotten how cold winter could be) while my poor partner attempted to apply at least one chain in the dark, freezing snow. Oh don't worry about my parents, they zoomed up the hill right away not realizing that their first born and her ENTIRE family were stuck freezing to death behind them. Once they realized this they headed to our rescue and assisted Scott in the chain dept while I, convinced I was frostbitten beneath my converse, snuggled next to a now very awake and panicked Aiden.
At 11 o'clock pm (12.5 hours after we began what we thought would be a 6.5 hour trip) we pulled up to what we assumed was our cabin. It was completely covered in snow and the only entrance we didn't need a permit for (get it--like we needed to climb a mountain.) was the garage. Home. Finally. Thank God.

Now why did I feel the need to tell you this long winded story about our dramatic venture through a blizzard? Because it didn't matter what things I thought were going to happen. The snowmen and the cocoa were not important. They were things that families do on TV (or Mormon ones because we all know they accomplish snowmen and board games) not things that generally happen for us regular folk. Vacations will never add up to insane expectations, but being with you family and knowing that you can get through scary times together is whats important and unexpected.

Plus we could have literally been carjacked by 3 gang banging grizzly bears and then had a home invasion from Charlie Sheen and a gaggle of hookers armed with violent tornadoes of truth and that still wouldn't have topped our harrowing adventure to our vacation.
I am happy to report that Alicia was wrong this time and no homicides happened. I had a great bonding time with my parents, brother, hubby and kids. I got to see my dad actually play cranium and attempt to act out bungee jumping only using his arms. I made a butt load of chicken and waffles and got to see a friend I hadn't seen in 10 years. We watched a ton of movies including a classic Jimmy Stewart called Mr. Hobbs takes a vacation. The snow was always too fresh to make a proper snow man and my kids only like the marshmallows on cocoa. I had a very good time with my fam and was actually sad to pull away from the cabin almost a full week later. It's taken 3 days to unpack and Sophie is currently struggling with her sleep schedule but this trip was worth it. Blizzard, panic attack and all.