The yearly blog???

I'm beginning to think I should just change the name of this blog to the Yearly Blog. I'll post a few times each January and forget all about it until the next year! Wait!!! I already do that! I'm going to try to be better....yet again this year. Here goes nothing! It is now 2013, February 10th to be exact. We have just gotten home from a trip to Bend, Or. We had a blast! We stayed at Seventh Mountain Resort. This is our second time there and our first bringing the boys. The resort is great! I can see it being a yearly or bi-yearly destination for our family as Bend has so much to offer during the winter and summer seasons. We arrived late on Friday and settled in. Saturday ended up being a fairly early wake up of about 7am. Everyone seemed to be ready to be awake and get our day started. Who was I to complain! Let's play in Bend! After breakfast we met Matt, Susan and Mia and went sledding at Wanoga Sno Park. It was SO much fun. The hill was PERFECT for our first time sledders and was nice and wide so there was plenty of room for multiple families to sled without having to wait at the top of a long skinny hill. Even though there is a nice warming hut on location, we had to physically leave the park to get the boys off the hill. They were having a BLAST. Mason got pretty daring, while Morgan preferred to walk about halfway up the hill and go from there. His main problem was he couldn't manage to get himself completely on the disc before it would start down the hill which ended up with him having some scratches on his face from the snow. He didn't seem to care though. Just kept on going! After sledding, we changed and warmed up a bit and then headed into town for lunch. We ended up trying Cascade Lakes Brewery and are happy we did. Their food and beverages were amazing. I got a taster tray of their beers and was quite surprised to find the glasses a tad bigger than other places I've tried before. I will definitely remember to ask how big their tasters are! No complaints here though, they were all delicious and I'm glad I chose that route. Once we were back at the resort it was pool time! Seventh Mountain has these amazingly warm outdoor pools. The sun was shining and I was bundled up in my ski jacket, but the kids were in their trunks swimming in the kiddie pool. The kiddie pool was the best kiddie pool we've seen to date. It was slanted and went from a slanted walk in gradually deepened to 2 feet. A 2 foot deep pool is perfect for my non-swimming kids and for their momma who does not want to swim in February, regardless of how warm the water is (I mean, you still have to get OUT of the pool!) The kids loved their pool time and were in there over an hour before I called their wrinkly little bodies out of the water and back to our room. We discovered when we checked in that our specific unit was actually owned by a couple and not just the resort. It was so nice because this couple had taken the time to stock it with games, movies, books and an outdoor toy box. We all enjoyed this immensely. We had some time to kill before dinner so Mike and Mason partook in a chess lesson. That was quite interesting. Morgan sat nearby and soaked in the information as well.

Dinner was set for Tumalo Feed Co with a few other couples that were also staying at the resort. I've heard rave reviews but have to be honest in saying that our family was very underwhelmed by our experience. We didn't feel the food lived up to the hype or the price! But it was a fun time and we enjoy trying new places. One more to cross off the list! After dinner it was back to resort to try out ice skating! Mike and I enjoyed this activity last year when we came to the resort but were unsure of how the boys would do. I have taken them roller skating before and that left me a ball of anxiety the entire time thinking we were going to leave with a broken arm. I am happy to say though, ice skating was a MUCH better experience. The boys seemed to do much better with ice skates than roller skates. We all had a blast. On our way back to our room we stopped off at one of the outdoor fire pits they have on the property. We warmed up our cold hands before heading back to our room. Once in our room it was time for jammies, popcorn, movie and relaxation. We all fell asleep rather quickly thanks to our cram packed day. This morning was time to leave. We took our time packing and enjoying our quiet sunny morning. We let the kids go swimming one more time for a short time before getting back on the road. The drive home was pretty and we are home relaxing and ready to rest up for the week.