Indoor Soccer Star

Donald and his indoor soccer team.
They play hard!
Bruises and aching joints won't stop this guy!
Age is just a number!

Sunriver and Skiing

In October, at the Yakima Museum auction that Donald and I attended (remember crazy blonde wig!), Donald bid on a family trip to a place in Oregon called Sunriver Resort.
A family in Yakima owns a home there and they donated a week's stay to the auction.
We took the kids out of school last week to enjoy a little getaway before 2013 really kicked off!

This will most likely be one of the last times we can head out while others are in school.
Hannah, in particular, has an increasing school work load and of course that will continue when she's in high school next year.
It gets harder and harder for her to make up what she misses.
Too bad because we have become very spoilt to being "on vacation" when everyone else is not!

So, we left Yakima on Monday and enjoyed a LONG drive to Sunriver.
The new van made it pretty sweet though!

After we crossed the Columbia River and entered Oregeon, we drove through very flat wheat field lands.
They had a layer of snow that left them looking amazing!

And the kids paid as much attention to all my ooohing and aaahing as I did when I was their age!
Remember that Mom?

When we arrived, we  instantly fell in love with our home for the week!
Tell me what's not to love!?!

Hannah enjoyed having her own king size bedroom!

We love a wood burning fire and Donald kept a nice one going each evening.

The kids didn't have to go far to explore and torture each other play in the snow!

After we settled in and had our first evening there, we made plans to go skiing the next day on Mt. Bachelor.

What can I say about skiing.
We all love it - so we will deal with pretty much any condition - but this trip pushed its luck.
This picture is a good example of the conditions we were in most of the time...

What you can't really see is the snow/rain mix with the 45 mile per hour wind gusts.
The shuttle dropped us off at 9 and wouldn't be back til 4 so...let's do this thing!!!

 So attractive!

The next day we rested at our little cabin in the woods.
We went sledding at the resort and that was loads of fun!

**I interrupt this blog story to show a beautiful picture I was able to capture of my teenager!**

**Now back to the regularly scheduled post!**

Thursday was our second day of skiing and we were hoping for a bit better conditions.
We traded gusting winds for a drop in temperature (down to about 18 degrees!)
Hmmm...which is better?
That's a tough one.

The nice part was that over past two nights, they got new snow, so there was a nice layer of powder on the runs.
Most of the time that made for very pleasant skiing.
But sometimes powder was our nemesis.
At least the falls were much softer!

While Hannah and I were on a lift, I really got my hopes up because behind these trees, I could see the sun trying so hard to peek through!

Oh well...not happening!

Ivan gained his confidence on the second day and went  up some steeper areas with Donald so he could ski down and do some jumps.
I think Jenelle will be attempting the same thing in the next few years, but I'm pretty certain I have a permanent partner for watching the action.
Hannah and I are content to hang out on the main run and cheer them on!

You can see how deep the powder is here because Ivan's skis are covered.

Good job Ivan!

No doubt our arrival at our cabin that evening was rewarding!
A nice sit in the hot tub!
Shower, dinner, fire and glass of wine!

Friday morning we packed and headed home.
We were all sad to leave.
This family knows how to enjoy themselves when we're on vacation!

Of course, as we drove away from our beautiful retreat, we saw Mt. Bachelor, in all its glory!
Looking pretty much like this...

http://sunrivervacationrentalhome.com/

Nice.
Thank you very much.
Oh well...a good reason to find a time to return and try again someday.