Thoughts of a Sundrenched Elsewhere

Ahhhh....Sunriver....
Here we come...

I  have several favorite parts of the day ~ one is waking up with coffee on the deck and quite probably seeing this...

We'll do lots of this...

 Spend hours everyday doing this...

And of course some of this...

and this...

My cousin, Angie, is going to take me to do this...

And I'm going to talk Steve into a date with me doing this...

Big group this year - I think there are 27 of us and let's hope we can all do this...

Later Gators.

Swing Batta Batta

Jack's last game of the season was Friday night - Parents vs. Kids. I forgot to mention that in the morning before the hike, I had a very weird pain just to the right of and a little below my belly button. I couldn't sit back without it feeling like a knife was cutting through my innards and when I pressed on it, I almost went through the roof with this hot crazy pain. I immediately googled appendicitis and figured it was a possibility and wondered how long I could last before heading to the hospital, since I did have a bunch of kids depending on me to lead them through the woods to a waterfall. Because it didn't hurt to just walk, I thought I should be fine. I ended up having no issues until we got back to the car and I had to sit back again. By the time the ball game came around, I was scared to twist or jump, but was pretty sure it was just a strained muscle. Steve jumped in to the game and I got to just enjoy and take pictures and now it just hurts when I sneeze. Definitely not appendicitis.

Jack was thrilled to be able to pitch (put the ball in the pitching machine) to his dad. Then he cleaned up 3rd base - it was a little too chalky for his liking.

Mai got bored and decided to practice her mad hula hooping skills for the contest in Sunriver next weekend.

"Mama, I think it's pure gold!"

Then yesterday was dog park, followed by a play date, followed by a birthday party at the park. After playing in the water, eating icecream cake and then candy out of the pinata, it wasn't easy to get these kids to sit for a serious photo.

Immediately after we got home, Steve and the kids loaded up into the car to go to a football game and I realized that I. Was. Alone. In. The. House.
I am NEVER alone in the house except for the occasional hour or two during the week when I'm working. It took everything in me to get my butt off the couch and go to church. It just killed me knowing the house was sitting there so nice and quiet and I was going to leave it. Who knows when an occurrence like this will happen again??
But, of course, church was really good and I was glad I went. I even had time when I got home to watch a movie before they arrived back home. Today is all about staying at home and doing nothing...well, nothing but cleaning, getting organized for Sunriver and getting caught up on work. Hmm.

A Jack Among Jacksons

My first attempt at leading a Kids' Adventure today went pretty well! We had 7 adults and 11 children - 3 of whom were named Jackson and of course, their leader, Big Jack. The best part was when someone would yell out "Jackson!!!", they would all obey whatever order was being yelled :-)

When we arrived at the trailhead, the parking lot was not the one I remembered from this hike from last year, so I started to have doubts as to whether this was the right "kid friendly" waterfall hike I thought I was leading us to. We soon found out that it was the right Falls, just not the parking lot of my memory. Hey! I got the important part right!

Although my kids are pretty self-sufficient on a hike like this, I became a surrogate to two wee ones whose moms had even smaller ones to take care of, so by the time we arrived at the waterfall, I was sweating bullets making sure I kept my two wards on the trail and not falling down the steep hill.

Almost there, kids - hey, look at this cool cave.

We arrived to sun, glorious sun, starting to beam down on us and the waterfall was magnificent!

We started in on lunch and the kids started shedding down to swimsuits and trying to find creatures on the rocks in Tanner Creek. They found some! I especially liked the creepy I don't know what it was, but ick...slime...blech. Of course, they all had to hold "it" and by the time it went through everyone's hands, I'm not sure it was even alive anymore. So so sorry creepy creature.

My kids are excited about hiking again!! Yea!! It just adds so much more enjoyment to have some extra kids along! I can't wait for Trillium Lake in two weeks...
check out this pic of what awaits us.

That Fam Damily of Mine

GOT. TO. LOVE. THEM.

We had a great family reunion down in Gold Beach for our first vacation of Summer. The kids got out of school on Wednesday (Hooray!! Schoooooooooools Out For Summer!) and we headed down the coast Thursday morning for five days to celebrate G'ma's birthday and get 21 of her great-grand children together for her. I love my family - I got to see all of my cousins 'cept one and all their kiddos and all my aunts and uncles. This trip was Mom's side of the family. We'll have our annual reunion for all my peeps on Dad's side in August.


We pulled into Gold Beach to the most fantastic weather.

 Played games.

Caught up with each other in the sun as we sat around the yard...

...and campfire.

We roasted marshmallows.

...and, of course, had some s'mores.

Hung out at the beach.

Tried to make good use of all the driftwood by building our own fort. Let's try to pick it up...

Hmmm...Maybe we could push it...

Visited the tide pools and saw lots of good stuff.

My cousin Abby got an itch to blaze a trail down to the "crick" we used to play in when we were kids, so Aunt Pat weed whacked her way down to the water and then Ab and I chopped at some trees and bushes until it was safe for the kids to play without getting eaten by sticker bushes. Ab felt that we were stifling them with such a small part of the area to play in and spent the better part of a second day chopping her way towards the ocean. The kids LOVED it! What an adventure was had trekking through the jungle river with their walking sticks and building three different dams.

Dear Dog Mountain,

Dear Dog Mountain,
I'll see you next year!

I think 5 visits across the border to visit this beauty is enough for the year.
The day T and I went was the most perfect, but yesterday was a good runner-up. The sun was so bright and warm. The breeze was so perfect during the hike, but got a little cool up top. I curled up with Ki and she kept me warm, but I did have goosebumps.

I met up with about 20 people from the gym for this hike. The flowers were amazing, although the balsam root is already starting to look a little haggard.

We split off into three groups. My group was led by trainer Alissa. She just got back from spending 3 months in India studying yoga so it was interesting to hear some of her stories. I also had a husband/wife team that have some property near Mt. Ranier where they've built a hut to sleep in so they can spend some amazing overnights in the wilderness - sounded incredible. Their dog Moose and Ki got along really good, sharing treats and a water bowl. It was a great hike up and we took the more difficult route and it didn't seem as difficult as last time when my calves cramped so bad. The wind was howling when we broke out of the trees.

We got to the top and found A LOT of people (we did get a rather late start) eating and laughing and some drinking wine (I also found several of the wine drinkers at the bottom of the hill with scrapes on their knees...)

Got home and read another 51 chapters in my book. I love that James Patterson breaks his chapters down into 2 or 3 pages. Makes this mom find it easier to pick up where I left off!

Three more days of school!! V- A- C- A- T- I- O -N -- In the Summertime!

Naked

I just woke to the sun streaming through our windows and not a cloud in the sky!! Birds are chirping, the weather is warm and Summer is here!!Yesterday was a fantastic start to the weekend!! We had fun taking it EZ in the backyard all day. I read 47 chapters of my book while the kids swinged? swang?

or is it swung?

Then onto some slippin' and slidin'

Play all day, then party all night...Only two weeks passed before MIL, SIL and myself had to head out for more wine tasting. We went to an event at the Oregon Gardens

and looked at a lot of fantastic plants, trees, and flowers.

We wandered around and landed for a while at the mustard stand (my fave was the spicy pineapple mustard), the bread stand (mmmm...bought Steve a loaf of crusty Italian bread), the goat cheese stand (Party in a Jar?), but our hang out spot seemed to be the Naked Winery booth (they are bringing fun and romance back into wine) where I drank Dominatrix Pinot and a Penetration Cab. The other girls stuck with the Naughty Chardonnay and then we all got tattoos.

MIL is usher at church today, so she's hoping it comes off easily. HA! Have you ever tried to scrub them off your kids?

Heading out in about an hour for a group hike up Dog Mountain. I'm guessing we couldn't ask for a better day - perfect weather and we should have all flowers in full bloom by now.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.  ~John Muir

Light As A Feather

I get bored at the pool. I miss open water swimming and I don't know that I'll really get the chance to do much of it this summer unless I can talk Steve into starting to go with me. The rule is never swim alone. I really want to break that rule, but I don't want to tempt fate.

So at the pool yesterday, I really didn't want to swim. I was making myself sick over our local missing boy, Kyron Horman
He's Jack's age. How many times do I drop off Jack at school thinking he's safe and sound? How can this have happened??? I'm so worried for Kyron and so sick over what if this was my child? Going on 6 days now. Heartbreaking.

I was swimming and thinking I felt like lead and out of nowhere I started chanting in my head "light as a feather" over and over again. Before you know it, I can't keep my feet in the water - my whole body was seriously "light as a feather". My heart started to feel lighter, too. Thank you, God.
Please take care of Kyron.