Crater Lake

We went to Crater Lake for the first time ever, for Jim, me and the boys and man is is gorgeous. Its actually only less than 2 hours from Bend and a really pretty drive, as you get closer to The Crater you feel like when the drive ends you will be at the top of the world and you kind of feel like that when you get out and look down to see the huge, deep blue lake below. Here are a few of my favorites of our visit:

This was taken from inside a little stone lookout that is carved into the side of The Crater, it looks like we were in some aquarium, but thats really what it looks like. The water was so beautiful it looked like a gel of some kind, not the freezing cold water it really is.

We walked around and explored the little village, and resort, and path along The Crater and found a place for the boys to play. These trees were just a magical place for them to be, and in the distance was a view of a far valley that felt like you could see forever! (I was really wishing that we had Tina's or DyAnn's camera there with us!) Yep, definately one of our favorite places to be...sigh....

He was so sleeeeepy.....

So we had a little fun with Brayden after he crashed on the couch one night. He crashed out in utter boy fashion with a ring of Cheeto cheese around his mouth, dirt on his face and hands and dirty holey sweats....really, life couldn't get any better for him!

If you look close, you can see that Dillon wrote "I'm Sleepy" in the paper, the boys had a blast with all the props and taking pictures of him, HA!

The High Jump

Jim is always finding ways to keep everyone busy, (even for himself) he is so creative! I love that about him...Here are some good shots of the boys making the high jump:

Ahhhh, Spokane!

We just got back from Spokane and I feel like we left our little piece of paradise behind....what a WONDERFUL time we had, thank you a million times for having us over and loving us the way that you do. You have truly been my life long family when I have not had an immediate family of my own and to be able to be with each of you and all of our children for the past week was a dream come true. What a wonderful feeling to be able to re-live so many of my childhood memories and create the same wonderful memories for my boys, and for all of us to do it together meant so much to us. We love you and miss you already!

Here are the girls with all of their grandchildren.....except of course, Brayden. Can't win 'em all I guess. Gotta love snowcones!

This was the first time the boys had been on any carnival rides and I was not surprised that they loved it! This was from on top of the ferris wheel:Look at Carter's hair after being on the spinning Sizzler :) And below was a pic from the top of the Spider, Dillon's first ride ever HA!
Dillon & Aiden in the fountain:
Well, as much as our visit was all fun and games I did learn some lessons along the way - none of which had anything to do with parenting. The most important lesson though, is that I will never be able to go on spinning rides again. Thought I could, and I DID. I was OK after the first couple of rides with the boys......and then....And then I took them for just a couple more rides on this seemingly harmless kiddie ride: (if you look close enough you can see Dillon and Aiden in the next spinning seat over)



Carter and Brayden loved it, I had a great time too - until I got off....until I got in the car to go home and told Gramma Dana "I need you to pull over" and ended up hurling in the middle of some parking lot while my children looked on from inside the car. Yep, I learned that I finally had gotten older and having children changed the insides of my body so I can't handle the rides anymore. I'm kinda bummed about it, but very glad I had that one last chance!

Oh Hi-iiii Boo! I'm in love with you!

Um, look at those two up there with their arms around each other acting like they never fight. Hmmm. The car ride there and back was, lets just say "something else", and it was nothing like the boys being all buddy-buddy like that picture above.....but we made it out alive and I'm very glad that we won't being seeing 1,000 miles of this for a while:
Yep, thats it. Thats all there was to look at. No wonder the boys went crazy! No, really, they were fine and I would turn around and do the drive all over again in a heartbeat - no doubt about it! I'll put a bunch more pics on Facebook for everyone to check out....
Can't wait to see you again next summer!