Spring Break - Day 7 and 8

Day 7 - I am SO far behind.


Day 7 was Friday, I believe. Today was another lazy day. We finally got out the door around 3:00 and planned to visit the bouncy house again. Much to our surprise, it closed at 4:00 today. I think everyone was a little sad about that.


We ended up just driving around Bend, looking for something to do. That's when I remembered reading on another blog "Matters of The Heart" about how they created Egg-Free Easter eggs. I knew there was a Michael's craft store just down the the road, so we bought foam eggs and made our own. I think everyone enjoyed making them and we hung them on our pantry door when we got home.

Day 8 - The Long Drive Home



We had hopes of driving straight home, but curiosity took us off course. We made it about 2 north of Bend when we saw the sign for the Kah-Nee-Ta Resort and Casino. The signs made it look pretty cool with water slides and other fun stuff, and it was only 11 miles off course. It wasn't exactly what we expected, but still not too bad for being in the middle of absolutely nowhere! Here's a few pics of the area around Warm Springs, OR.





There's also one gas station as you're going across the pass that we seem to stop at on every trip. Here's a picture from this trip and one from 3 years ago. (Same house in the background.... the second picture was taken in May - all the snow is gone!)
2009

2006


That's it. Spring Break is over and we're back home safely. Kids are back in school and I am back to work. Time goes by too quickly....

Oh... I almost forgot. We stopped by to check in on the newest baby calf, but it was too dark for the pictures to turn out. He's running around and doing well (in case you were curious).

Spring Break - Day 5 & 6

Day 5

Today we were lazy in the morning. We didn't get out of our condo until a little after noon. Feeling like we needed a little exercise, we decided to hike up Pilot Butte in Bend. It's a 500 foot high cinder cone. There's a road that goes to the top, but it doesn't open for the season until this Saturday. There are a couple of different trails (some harder than others), but we just walked on the road. It gave the kids more area to run around in....

Except when they convinced Jason to carry them up! We actually took turns riding them on our backs. I thought my legs would be sore, but it was my lungs that nearly killed me. Boy, am I out of shape!

Here are two pictures taken of Chase & I and Sydney & Jason. It was originally one picture, but I thought cutting it in half made the shots cuter.

I'm always looking to get a good picture of the kids together. Chase didn't want to sit next to Sydney and she was trying really hard to keep the wind from blowing her hair into her face. It was really windy up there.

After our big hike up the butte, we drove over to Sisters, OR just to look around. It was almost 4:00 when we got there and places were already starting to shut down. We did manage to find a bakery. Our family suffers from serious sweet tooth issues, plus we needed to replace any fat cells we may have lost on the butte.

On our drive back through Bend, we stopped for a "cultural" dinner.

I'm starting to think that Miso soup is a "guy" thing in our family. This was Chase's first taste and he loved it! Sydney and I... not so much. Taylor ate ours.... yes, that's 3 bowls for Taylor (our bottomless pit!)

Sydney did a great job using her chopsticks. Each of the little kids had teriyaki chicken with gyoza. Chase also loved the edamame. It wasn't until he'd eaten about 20 of them that it dawned on me that they're "SOY" beans! Geez... luckily he's not terribly allergic and hasn't shown any reaction to them at all.

I had the sushi combination platter... cuz I just love to try new stuff. I ate everything except the one with all the fish eggs. I attempted to eat it and choked down half, but it's just not for me. Not enough soy and wasabi to take that icky taste away. Taylor and Jason had another sushi combo with California rolls, tuna rolls and cucumber rolls. They just can't stand to eat the raw fish (especially when they don't know what it is).

Day 6 - "My Day"

Today was my day. I got up early, made breakfast, put a roast in the oven for lunch, washed a load or two of laundry and made my reservation at the spa! I decided to get a facial this time. I've only had one other facial in my entire life, but loved it.

So, here's the story.... I had a 12:30 appointment. I show up a little after noon, head to the locker room (see below) to get changed...

then head over to the relaxation room (see below) to wait for my appointment.

So, here I sit, waiting for them to call me. For about 10 minutes, I'm all alone in this room, just hanging out, having a cup of tea (with honey) and enjoying a spa magazine. Five different girls all in their robes, also come in, enjoy a cup of tea and are called out for their appointment. I start to think... "have they forgotten about me?". Once I'm all alone again, I decide to go see what the hold up is. Jason is only expecting me to be gone 2 hours.

I stop by the spa desk and they had made a mistake and put me on the schedule for FRIDAY! WHA? I can't come back on Friday. Today is the day I set aside for this. So, she tells me the next available facial is at 2:15, how about a free massage or body wrap to help ease the pain of waiting. Are you kidding me? That's perfect! Two for the price of one!

I get a honey/avocado body wrap for 80 minutes and then off to another 80 minute facial. Absolute heaven! I wish I could have taken more pictures, but when I thought I was heading out of there with no treatment at all, I packed the camera back in my bag. : (

Tonight, we spent another 2 hours in the pool although it was a mix of rain and a few snow flakes. It was still fun and the kids loved it. I'm shocked that they just went to bed at 10:30. I would have thought they'd crash hours ago.

Now it's my turn to crash! Have a blessed night everyone.

Spring Break - Day 3 & 4

Day 3 - First full day in Sunriver & Bend

Today started out with a BIG breakfast. I think we get a little over excited about vacation breakfast. We had country gravy with biscuits, eggs, grits and sausage. I think there was something else, but I've already forgotten. Breakfast at home is a bowl of oatmeal or cereal.

The weather was so gorgeous that the kids wanted to get outside as soon as possible to play. You can never go wrong with bubbles!

When everyone else was up and ready, we headed out for a walk, with a few photos along the way.

We don't see a lot of pine cones around our house, so everywhere we walked, Sydney was looking for more pine cones. She made little piles all along the path. The one in the picture below we kept so that she could take it home. I can see it now... driving home with a bag full of pine cones. I guess we could make bird feeders out of them. : )
After our walk, we decided to drive in to Bend to pick up a few items at "Walmart Fall Apart" (as Jason calls it). Along the way, we spotted a SuperCuts and decided to get Chase a haircut. Sydney got a trim, too, but nothing as drastic as Chase...

Our new baby boy!

After haircuts, we started looking around Bend for something cool to do. We found this awesome bouncy house! For only $6.50, it was quite a deal. We all got to play.

There was a huge Velcro wall that everyone took turns sticking to. Chase definitely liked it least!
And here's my crazy dive on the obstacle course. I was racing Taylor and thought I was 15 years old, too. I dove through the one part and nearly broke my back! Geez... I'll be on Ibuprofen the rest of the trip. You can see that my body is pretty much straight. My socks are showing in the right hand window.
OK... everyone liked the Velcro wall! Here's a video of Taylor. My camera doesn't do a bad job of taking video. (Video to be inserted once we get home. This Internet connection just isn't doing it for us)

Sydney was up and down the huge slides. She would just giggle and squeal every time. I knew we'd all sleep good tonight.

Day 4

Today we started out at the pool! The weather was too gorgeous to put this off any longer. Especially since the forecast is calling for rain on Day 5!

Two years ago, neither of the little kids wanted to get in the water. This year, neither of them wanted to get out.

Here's Taylor, just chillin' by the pool getting some sun. It's one of the few moments I caught him not texting.

Tonight was family night at the Sun Mountain Fun Center so we decided to go bowling, have pizza and play games.

Taylor played a hundred rounds of Dance Dance Revolution. I think I danced about 8 songs with him until I was sweating and looking for Jason to tag and take my place. Jason and Syd played a game of air hockey, while Chase was racing cars!

Well, that's the update so far. Hope to get back online later. I have to hand the laptop over to Jason so he can get back to Mafia Wars on Facebook! That guy is seriously addicted!

Spring Break - Day 1 and 2

Day 1 - Leaving home

Our original plans to get out of town early had to change at the last minute, so we weren't able to leave until around 1:00. Our first adventure happened only about a half mile from our house. As we were driving by a small farm with alpacas and cows, my husband looks over and says "Hey... look at that cow over there taking a poop". Of course, everyone jumps to look as though this is something we've never seen before, but the closer I looked I thought... that's not poop! It doesn't take a genius to take a second look and know that wasn't poop... it was a foot! This cow was right in the middle of giving birth only a few yards from the road and we had front row seats. It was really amazing and only took about 15 minutes from start to finish. Jason took many, many, many pictures. Unfortunately, I had my camera on a weird setting. (I've been playing with the ISO setting and apparently had it set to use all available light) All the pictures were solid white! Needless to say, Jason was ticked, but at least we figured it out before we drove away...... So, without further ado, here is a baby calf, only a few minutes old.

And that's how it started....

So, since it takes about 6 hours to drive straight through, we decided to break up our trip to Sunriver and not make the whole drive in one day like we have in the past. We stopped off at a kennel along the way and said goodbye to Bella and Gizmo who seemed perfectly happy to get out of our mini-van. I'm guessing they don't like it much.

We drove straight through to Salem, OR and that's where we spent the first night. While I'm searching my navigator do-dad in the car, looking for a Super 8 or Best Western, Jason sees the "Phoenix Grande Hotel". For me, I think I'll have to sell a kidney already to pay for this trip, but after we stopped to check out the prices, they weren't too bad. Plus, they had an indoor pool and a free continental breakfast the next morning.The lighting wasn't great for pictures. The kids didn't care whether I took pictures or not. They had fun jumping from the warm water in the hot tub to the cool water in the pool.

DAY 2

I forgot to take my camera to breakfast, but they had a "make your own waffles" station, which was really neat, plus tons of other stuff to choose from. I think we had a little of everything.
After breakfast, we headed down to a park by the river to let the kids play and ride on the carousel. The weather was amazing. (It's technically Monday night when I'm writing this, but the weather couldn't have been nicer than it has been so far!)

I also had a hard time capturing a good photo of the kids on the carousel. Those horses were galloping around pretty fast! (I got a little woozy when I rode it! - Geez, I'm getting old).

The kids rode twice, but were sad when they had to get off.

The rest of the drive was really beautiful, thanks to the fabulous weather. I always like to take pictures of the mountains down here, although the picture never does it justice.

I was happy to say that around 3:30 in the afternoon, that we finally made it to Sunriver!

I've taken tons of pictures, but the Internet connection here is slower than molasses, so it has taken me over an hour just to upload these. It's also 10:30, so I'm heading to get the kids to bed now. Hope to update you more as I have time.

Have a great week!

Happiness is spending 5 days with family and friends at the Oregon dunes.

Happiness is having completely random pictures to post because I didn't think it through very well.

Happiness is having nice weather for such a long drive. The sign says "Welcome to Oregon"Skip ahead a day or so. Happiness is sleeping puppies who aren't tearing anything up, pooping on the floor or barking at your neighbors. Don't they look sweet?

Happiness is also little boys sleeping. Also not pooping, tearing anything up or barking yelling at our neighbors. : ) I had put Chase up in the front bedroom to take a nap. I told him not to come out of the room, so he got as close as he could get without leaving the room. I think his little fingers were sticking out under the sliding door.

Happiness is having somewhere to toast just one more hamburger bun once you've put your grill away! Yes... it actually worked!

Happiness is attending a Home and Garden show when the weather is too cold and rainy to ride quads. Chase and Sydney enjoyed looking at the baby chicks.

Happiness is a free hot dog and Pepsi.

Some of the best things in life are free!

Happiness is old rides at a 50's restaurant in town. Sydney and Chase both enjoyed taking rides in this little ferris wheel. It was only 10 cents per ride and lasted about 2 minutes. Good old fashioned cheap fun!

Happiness is 25 cent horse rides.

Happiness is trips to the dunes. You were probably starting to think we didn't go to the dunes at all, huh?

Although it's very difficult to see, Jason and Chase are riding the quad down that large hill in the middle of the picture. They look like ants from where I was sitting. It was a very long, steep hill. You can hardly tell that the ocean is in the background. I've really got to work on my photo taking skills!

Happiness is Jason and I introducing Chase to something we love. This was his first time out in the dunes on a quad. He rode in a dune buggy sort of thing last August, but this was his first time having to hold on. He did really great and seemed to love it. I think Jason only road once by himself and took turns taking Sydney and Chase out. What a great Dad!

Happiness is having a happy little boy! It was a great day!

Chase is ready to ride!

Happiness for Taylor is spending hours (no, I'm not exaggerating) on his phone, texting! Here he is in the back of the toyhauler, bent over so his phone could be plugged in and charging. That's serious desperation!

Happiness is heading home on Sunday! It's a long drive, but piggy kept Sydney company.

Happiness is taking a nap during the 5 hour drive. OK, so he's not really sleeping. You can tell he's smiling, right?

Happiness is your husband thinking your nuts to continue taking a bazillion pictures in the truck on the way home.

The drive home on Sunday was a bit crazy. We had sun, rain, sleet and snow. We were blessed to have made it home safely.

Happiness is God's promise....