The lovely folks at Hotels.com provided us with two nights lodging during our trip to Mammoth Lakes, California. Hotels.com has a fantastic loyalty program called Welcome Rewards which rewards you with free hotel nights for your accumulated purchases. For every 10 nights, get 1 free. Just think of it as one of those buy 10 car washes, get one free cards, BUT SO MUCH BETTER.

Last month, D and I were lamenting that we had become rather lax in regards to traveling as a family. On one hand, we have my son, who racked up over fifty flights before the age of two, and then my daughter, who will be turning two in two months and has been on about, um, five. You all know how it goes, though…more kids, more financial commitments, a lot of reasons why we have been relative homebodies over the past year or two.

(I also think it’s fair to point out that Wita is a horrible flier. Squirms, screams, whines the entire flight…not so enjoyable. Wito has always been a complete delight on planes – maybe because we started him much earlier? Who knows…)

(I ALSO would like to point out that the minute I spoke aloud about our lack of travel, three (THREE) traveling commitments came about in the course of a week. So, I’m basically living out of a suitcase for the first three weeks of May. Thanks, universe! Way to go overboard.)

When March rolled around, we started throwing around the idea of an extended weekend road trip over spring break. I mean, we could spend years traveling the state of California alone! Plus, if Wita wanted to scream the entire trip, only our ears would have to take the punishment, not some poor business traveler that made the mistake of sitting in the row ahead of us. Win, win. Right about that time, Hotels.com contacted me about helping us to take a little excursion, and it all fell into place.

Next up, where to go? Unlike the majority of the country who dreams of sandy, warm beaches over spring break, that’s kind of our daily grind around here. I wanted to see some snow! Wita is almost two and has NEVER seen a snowflake, and that needed to change. We decided on Mammoth, hopped on the hotels.com website, and chose the Westin Monache Resort as our home away from home. (SO glad we did. The hotel was absolutely lovely, the one-bedroom suite was perfect for our family of four, and our suite had a full kitchen – dishes, pots, pans, stove top, dishwasher, the works. Perfect. Also, the hotel sits right across the street from the main village and gondola, so we never needed our car.)

We had such a great time. There was still lots of snow on the mountain, but the temperatures were in the 50s. Perfect weather. We built snowman, went sledding, hung out in a local igloo, rode the gondola 135 times, danced to a live band in the village square, and ate so much food. (For those of you who are interested Schat’s Bakery, Roberto’s Mexican, and Burgers were our favorites from the trip.)

All in all, it was the best. Leaving the laptops at home and fully focusing on our family for four days was exactly what we needed. Thanks so much to Hotels.com for the opportunity to get away!