Mommathon

We set out early in the morning again to take part in the Paulina Plunge which is a six-mile trek down a mountain on bikes with frequent stops at beautiful waterfalls and natural waterslides. It was a FULL day and we managed to come out with only a few minor injuries.

Getting ready to head out.

This was our first stop. We parked out bikes and hiked down to this waterfall. Do you know how cold the water is at this elevation? It’s cold. Really, really cold.

Getting ready to jump into the “Boiling Cauldron”.

Then we hiked back up, got back on our bikes and went to our next stop. Have I mentioned how hard it is to breathe at 6,000 feet?

Forest fire…there was a lot of this. Only YOU can prevent forest fires, folks.

Lunch stop!

More waterfalls/waterslides

I have some videos of the kids jumping into the waterfalls and sliding, but I can’t get them to work. I’ll keep trying.

That night we ate some yummy Mexican food and then went to the SunRiver Village for a little fun.

On our last day at SunRiver we slept in (much deserved), packed up, checked out and then went horseback riding. There are no picture of horseback riding. They didn’t allow pictures or cell phones so as to not spook the horses. Any policy that is about not spooking the horses (especially when I am on one) is okay by me. We had a lovely time and Julio, Cinnamon, Christmas and Cowboy delivered us back safely.

We got to SunRiver in the late afternoon, so we took advantage of the extensive bike trails and headed out to explore.

We started out our first full day at SunRiver kayaking six miles down the Deschutes River. We started early in the morning…it was so peaceful and beautiful. Sean and Colm took one kayak and Liam and I were in another. We saw some wildlife along the way, but mostly a female duck that kept following me and Liam. She would fly in super close to our kayak and then paddle along for a while. Just when I thought she was done and we couldn’t see her anymore, she would fly in again. This happened at least three different times. I finally figured out that I think she was trying to get us to feed here.

We don’t have a lot of pictures of kayaking since we were busy, well, kayaking.

Next we went to the Newbery National Volcanic Monument which is basically a spot where a volcano erupted about 7,000 years ago and they made a little trail through it so you could see the devastation. We also watched a video about all of the volcanoes along the Cascade Range that basically said that when Mt. Rainier and Mt. Hood blow, we are all totally screwed, not because of the ash but because they have glaciers on top of them and all of that ice would melt in an instant and flood everything down below in a hurry. Mudslides galore. Oy.

And because we hadn’t already done enough that day, we went to the pool when we got back to the lodge. A little unexpected treat that was next to the pool was a slide.

This little rope and log combination kept the boys busy for FOREVER. It was hilarious. Liam said he felt like he was on a game show. After doing this and going down the waterslides several times it was time to go back and call it a day.

Let’s just say that everyone slept VERY well that night.

This is the second book by this author that I have read and I loved the first book, so I had high hopes for this one. Oy! I somehow made it through the first 200 pages and then it (sort of) started to pick up. Most of the first half of the book is about all of these obscure novels the characters have to read while in college. I don’t think I had heard of any of them or the authors. Finally, FINALLY the story starts to happen during the second half of the book, but by then I didn’t really care.

We are about two weeks into summer break and we are having a great time. The boys have had birthday parties to attend and an end of year baseball party. We’ve celebrated Father’s Day, gone hiking at the Audubon Society where we saw a lot of birds (obviously!), but also salamanders, tadpoles and a lot of wild animals that had been injured and had been brought to the facility for rehabilitation. We have been bowling and the boys started taking a knitting class (they’re making hats!). We’ve made terrariums and started making pinatas. We’ve gone swimming and gone to a couple of violin lessons. We’ve been to the park (a lot!) and played with our neighbors (a lot!). Today we are going to Sky High and later on tonight, starting swim lessons. Here are some pics from our adventures so far this summer.

We saw this place a few weekends ago when we were headed somewhere else and we knew we wanted to come back and visit.

Prairie grasses blowing in the wind

See the bald eagle? We were able to see him up close from the visitor’s center with their telescope.

This is the second book by this author that I’ve read and they’ve both been really good. His characters usually lead pretty hard lives and often make really bad choices which is usually what makes a good story. No one wants to read about happiness, I guess? 🙂 In this story the main character, mostly referred to as “the girl”, has a horrifically awful boyfriend that she ends up leaving him and her family behind for a new life. Her new life is also filled with pain and bad choices and panic attacks which keep her from really ever getting ahead. The author doesn’t leave us totally in the deep dark depths of depression though. There is a little bit of hope at the end of the story. The reader is never told exactly what becomes of “the girl”, but there is a little bit of happiness at the end that you hope can continue.

This was our book club pick that we discussed this week at book club. I must admit, it was not my favorite book. It’s nonfiction and is written by a local author, but I guess I am just not that into birds. It is about the author’s time spent studying birds on the Zumwalt in eastern Oregon and how ranching can effect the soil, the plant life and the rodents and other prey that the birds rely on. Now, that being said, I am glad I am in a book club because even though this book really isn’t something I would normally read, discussing it at book club and listening to the other ladies talk about why they did like it, helped me to appreciate it more.

We have been blessed with some fabulous teachers…Miss Jan, Mrs. Christians and this lovely lady,
Mrs. T. Liam had her for 2nd and 3rd grade and Colm had her this year for 2nd grade. If I could clone her, I would. She is just such an awesome teacher.

See why we love her? The silly picture was her idea. 🙂

The Rose Festival is a very big deal around these parts. The main event is the Grand Floral Parade, but there is actually more than one parade (Starlight Parade and the Junior Parade) during the week or two of events leading up to the main parade. There’s also a big carnival, Fleet Week, a 5K race and much, much more. For reasons I can’t recall (probably our baseball schedule), this is the first year we have made it to any of the events.

We didn’t make it downtown for the parade, but they had all of the floats on display. They are made out of flowers, but I did see some rice on one of the floats. Maybe the rule is that all of the materials have to be plant-based?

I don’t know who the cute baby is or the woman who’s holding him. 🙂

The Dragon Boat races are what really drew us to the festivities. There were races going all day long. I think this was probably our favorite part of the whole day.

We got to go on this boat…

We took a break from walking around to enjoy a nice lunch outside. This was our view…it was such a gorgeous day.

A few more boats…

and then a carnival game and it was time to go home.

These pictures are awful, but where I was sitting along with how the sun was (or wasn’t) coming in through the windows…it just wasn’t a good combination. Colm did a great job though and passed with flying colors.