Summer has flown by faster than I can imagine. Somehow we are already at the point of loading the back packs with a new year's worth of school supplies and getting back into early to bed, early to rise routines. Fortunately for us, we scheduled one last camping trip to Bend before we had to say goodbye to summer vacation. Although the trip started off with far too many speed bumps (I spent the days before we left frantically trying to finish Aubrey and Ainsley's photo books for year to utilize a coupon only to realize as I finished at 11:30PM that my coupon had actually expired the day before at midnight....I was off by ONE day!! Prepping for camping then was consolidated into the morning we left resulting in us leaving Neal and my suitcase at home...fortunately we realized this when we were only about 15 minutes from home :-/ Back on the road and off to Bend, as we were unpacking and setting up camp in a rush to beat the sunset we realized that we had forgotten Ainsley's pack'n play. Goodness gracious!) we still had a blast and didn't let the rain or thunder or cool nights ruin our fun.
Onto talking about the fun stuff!
Our first day of adventures took us to the lava caves and the lava flow.
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| End of the lava cave |
Day 2 was spent around Paulina Peak.
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| Family photo time atop Paulina Peak in the Newberry Volcanic national park. |
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| View from the top. 2 lakes and the obsidian flow. We hiked around the obsidian flow before we drove to the top for a bird's eye view. |
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| Ella striking a pose at the top!! |
On our way down from the lakes, some friends had told us about a waterfall you can slide down! It was only supposed to be about a mile from the trail head. We didn't really consider that said waterfall may not be exactly 1 mile or less from where we parked our cars; we set off with no water, no snacks and no baby carrier except our trusty arms...ugh!! 1.6 miles, 11 kids, 6 adults and who knows how long later we arrived.
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| Our crew staging at the top. |
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| Aubrey sliding down the waterfall!! It gives you a good push down into the water at the bottom, but daddy was there to pull her up and she gave us a family Aubrey smile. |
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| Ella went down all by herself and swam over to the side all by herself! I was so proud of her. She was spitting and sputtering for a second but then was excited that she too could say she slid down a waterfall! |
Day 3 was spent hanging out around camp. Unfortunately it was a little chilly to spend much time in the river, we still enjoyed our day.
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| Picnic in the park |
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| Ainsley Rae- our dirty faced, outdoor-loving girl! |
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| Ainsley spent most free moments camping dragging her stroller around. She had so much fun! Our campsite was right next to the bathrooms (convenient for the older ones in our group ;-)) and the first day camping, I swear I no more than blinked and couldn't find Ainsley!! Everyone set off in different directions. I found her smiling, with her stroller in the 1st stall of the men's bathroom. For the rest of the trip, she found it very entertaining to hide in that particular spot....crazy kid!! |
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| The top photo can be used as comparison for how dirty this child's face is. For reasons a child could never explain well enough, Ella picked up either charcoal or just burnt wood from a fire pit and decided to color all over her sister's face!?!?! |
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| Jr. Ranger program- binocular making!! |
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| Ella, her binoculars, and the pose! |
Beautiful sunset on our last night! Kinda symbolic of our whole trip...a little stormy at times, but without the storms you would miss out on beauty that follows.
Happy end of summer!!
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