Sun River Vacation

This last weekend Max's boss (Nic) invited all of the administrators and their families in his company for a weekend getaway in Sun River Oregon. In total there were four families which brought the count up to 18 people. We stayed in an amazing resort/lodge style house that Nic's wife Hailey organized.  We started driving there Thursday afternoon after Max finished the work he needed to do. It was about a 4 hour drive to get to the house. We stopped in Madras for dinner at the Black Bear Diner and so Charlie could get some wiggle time. Charlie loved dancing to the Juke box and high-fiving and hugging all the bear carvings. We ate well then drove the remaining hour to the house. 

We got a quick tour of the house and visited with Nic and Hailey for awhile (they were the only family there already) It was late and somehow the googly eyes came out. We had a good half an hour of fun with the googly eyes then brought in all our stuff from the car and got ready for bed. 

Charlie actually thought they were great. 

Charlie had a rough night sleeping, we tried to put him in a pack n play but he seems to be growing out of it and can climb out if he wants, since he kept waking up, he ended up in our bed, between max and me pushing each of us off a side of the King size bed. He also wanted to play with the blinds and climb on the bed all night. So the first night we really didn't sleep that great. My little explorer has to check everything out before he is capable of sleeping.

Friday:
The next morning after breakfast we went swimming in the indoor lap pool and hot tub. Charlie gets so clingy when he's in the water, it will be interesting to see how he does when we start swim lessons next week.

We all got out of the pool and got ready to go to the mountain for skiing and snowboarding. 

Max was super excited as he loves snowboarding and it's been 2 years since he's gone. 

This was also exciting because Charlie had never really seen real snow, we only got a couple hours of snow last year and it melted by noon. 

 Charlie ate a mid-morning snack while we got ready for the snow. 

When we got to the mountain, Nic took 3 of his daughters up to ski and Max went up with them to snowboard. I stayed in the lodge with Charlie and Hailey with her son Luc. We ate some lunch and visited. For the record, we have known Nic and Hailey's family long before Max worked for them. Nic was in our bishopric when we left on our missions and I babysat some of daughters when they were babies. They are an awesome family. 

Anyway, after awhile Charlie was getting restless in the lodge so I decided it was time to take him out and find a place to play in the snow. It was a little tricky to find a place to play because we were at the bottom of a hill where tons of skiers and snowboarders were ending their run. 

Charlie loved being in the snow, his cheeks got super rosy and his hands seemed to get cold from his wimpy gloves but he didn't seem to care. He kept running off so it was hard to get a picture of him.  

After a little bit of snow play we went back into the lodge. I had to bribe him with snacks and Hailey let him play with her ipad so he was content for a little longer. 

We explored the lodge and spent time looking out the windows at the snow and the birds. 

Just before 4 o'clock Nic and Max came in with the girls to get ready to go back to the house. 

And this is what Max looked like on the mountain. He's likes to bring out his wig to make an "instant party" as he calls it. I think he also likes that fact that the hair keeps him warm. That's my crazy husband. 

When we got back to the house, Max took Charlie into the hot tub to warm up from a cold day on the mountain. I attempted to be helpful with dinner prep. when we had arrived back to the house Chris and Kincade's families had arrived. 

I think this twin is Bree in the corner. 

 We ate an awesome Spaghetti dinner that everybody contributed to and then the kids all went into the play/bunk room to watch Dora the Explorer.

Dorothy and Charlie

Ava and Zuri

 Then the popsicles were passed out and Charlie was a happy little man!

The kids went and watched some more Dora until bedtime then we had quiet time and got (some of) the kids to sleep. Luckily Charlie was exhausted and went down pretty easy in his pack n play. 

We stayed up visiting with the other grown-ups which was so fun because with all of us having young children. that really doesn't happen very often. We then watched Pitch Perfect, that movie is seriously so funny! Charlie woke up crying and coughing before it was over so he sat and watched the rest of the movie with us which ended shortly after midnight. It took a while to settle him down and he still didn't sleep that great but it was better than the previous night and he stayed in his pack and play. Also, as we were cuddling him to sleep Max started lightly snoring and Charlie kept saying "airplane airplane." It made me laugh, he also kept saying "vacuum, dirt, vacuum, dirt" as he was drifting off to sleep. Definitely his father's son. 

Saturday:

This was an incredibly busy day in the most fun ways. We had a slow morning with breakfast and visiting but shortly before noon we all went to go see Frozen: the sing along in the theater courtesy of Grow Construction. Most of the kids had seen it before. I sat next to 9-year-old Cici who had seen it at least 4 times. This was Charlie's first movie theater experience if we aren't counting the 20 minute video in the Getysburg theater that Charlie was a little monster during. Also the reason we haven't brought him back to the theater. He loved the movie and just got a little restless during the last half hour so he stood next to us and continued to watch the movie. I was pretty pleased. It was a fun family outing. 

Afterward, Charlie and Max tried a quick round of Dance Dance Revolution. 

These boys can dance!

Then he headed over to Red Robin for a large group lunch, thanks again to Grow Construction. 

We attempted some group pictures here. 

Kincade, Courtney and little boy James

Chris, Kenny and their kids Dot, Zuri and Remi. 

And here is the best picture we got of the whole group during the weekend. Minus Max.

Little James sat by us at lunch and he was so adorable. 

Charlie felt it was important to bless our food. He is becoming quite the meal-time pray-er 

He got serious about his macaroni

The best part about family vacations are that Charlie gets tons of Daddy time which he loves, and I'm pretty sure that Max is crazy about his Charlie time.

We then went to the ice skating rink. Once we got there, we still had about 50 minutes before it was open skate time so we explored the shops on the resort. This was a fun one full of homemade gifts from around the world.  

 James got this alpaca sweater

It was then time to try out ice skating. I was the observer and photographer this time. Max took Charlie out on the ice. It was getting close to the end of the day and Charlie was exhausted so that led to some mood swings. He liked being on the ice but then he didn't want Max to hold him but he didn't like sitting on the ice but for the most part he enjoyed skating around until Max needed a break to stretch his back. I took CHarlie to sit by the fire place and he got so mad and screamed and tried to run off in his skates. I was surprised how far he got. He got to go back on the ice for awhile longer until Max needed another break. This cycle happened about 3 times and overall Charlie was a lot more happy skating. He would cry "ice" when he was with me. haha. He did surprisingly well and luckily Max has done a bit of skating so we was a good support for Charlie. It would be fun to try it again sometime when Charlie isn't exhausted, I think we all would enjoy the experience a little more.  

Beautiful Cici

CHarlie is about to break down here...

Some cuddle breaks were helpful

As Charlie improved, Max was able to work with him by holding only one hand. He did pretty well. 

It was Cici's first time skating too and she was already doing tricks along with her younger twin sisters. 

On the way home, Charlie screamed for a good five minutes before falling completely asleep. We were able to transfer him to his bed where he slept perfectly all night. Once he was in bed, Max and I took the opportunity to go swimming and hot tubbing together. It was enjoyable knowing that we could swim but still be in ears distance of Charlie in case he did wake up.

After a good swim we showered then visited some more. These two boys are 5 month old cousins and they were great to have around.

Remi and Luc

 We realized how exhausted we were and decided to go to bed before it was even midnight. It felt great!

Sunday:
We woke up and got ready to go to church. I always like visiting new wards. There was a mix up in directions and time so we ended up getting there for the service an hour early, we weren't able to stay for the hour because everyone was packing up and leaving and we felt we should check out at the same time. We had a small family prayer and scripture study in the car then went back to the house. Everyone was getting close to leaving so we packed quick and then helped clean up a bit.

When we first arrived at the house Max had noticed that there was a tandem bike in the garage and it has been our goal to go ride a tandem bike for a couple of years. We had been so busy since Day 1 of the trip that we still hadn't had the opportunity. Just before we left Hailey said to go out and ride the bike, the girls could watch CHarlie and she would take our pictures. We jumped at the opportunity.

And here we are with my large 32 week along belly. 

 We laughed like crazy. My belly kind of got in the way of my knees but we just went up the street then back down. It was a weird experience, but oh so gratifying. I'm excited to try again when we have more time and my belly isn't in the way.

Nic and Hailey then went for a quick ride. They had never done it either.

 We then took some pictures on the deck...

I was going to crop out my legs because my boys are all dressed so nice and I'm in my yoga pants but I didn't so there you have it...Our Family!

But our adventure didn't end there. Originally we had heard that we were going to stay most of Sunday because the rest of Max's coworkers were thinking of watching the Super Bowl at the house. We have never been Super Bowl watchers but we figured we would stay and enjoy the festivities. At the last minute, everyone else decided to leave early so that is what we did. This left us with the rest of the day in central Oregon and we had been wanting to visit Max's brother's family who live in Prineville which was on our way home. We called Lisa to see if she was interested in some impromptu visitors that afternoon. She was more than willing to have us over so that is just what we did. It was great spending time with Lisa and our nephews. Charlie got really excited about August's toys. Especially all his Buzz Lightyear gear!

Of course they had to try out Mitchel's new pull up bar. (Sidenote: In Charlie's gymnastic class earlier in the week we was working on his pull ups. He can go about halfway when most kids in his class are just learning to hang, the teacher directed everyones attention to him so he could show the class how to do a pull up. The kids and parents cheered for him and he LOVED it...Max was also incredibly proud when he heard about it)

This is a game Max and Charlie play pretty regularly. Max does some pull ups while holding Charlie with his legs. Charlie thinks it's SO fun.

 So then he tried it with his twelve year old, 115 pound nephew. He tried but it didn't work as well.

And then the cousins played some more with this cool fighting top game.  

And then with some blocks and dinosaurs.

Everyone watched Wreck-it Ralph while I made soft pretzels with the ingredients I had brought planning on making them for the super bowl party. 

We enjoyed some pretzel eating and then some more playtime. Brayden and Mitchel introduced Max to an Xbox game while Charlie and August played with more toys in his room. 

August then got excited about doing an Insanity workout...I'm not sure why but he was so pumped so he put it in and Charlie and August did their exercising. 

They were pretty awesome jumping all around I just watched and was amazed that I was able to do that at one point. We're doing Insanity again this summer shorty after baby brother comes!

We also had some dance party spurts in there a couple of times which was super fun. 

The night was getting dark and we still had a 3 hour drive ahead of us so we decided to head out. The drive went smoothly even through the snow and over the mountain. We are so glad we were able to have some family time as well as an amazing trip to Sunriver thanks to Max's boss.