Sunday, August 2, 2009

Frustration

Is it me, or is blogging becoming a thing of the past -- being replaced by Facebook? I just looked over the past 3 months of blogs I started but haven't posted and there are NINE incomplete and unpublished posts for me! And unfortunately, once you get behind, it's hard to catch up! I think this summer has been so crazy with activities and work that blogging was just on the bottom of my priority list. I'm still 3 1/2 years behind on scrapbooking and getting further behind every day! Thank you, friends, who are still keeping up on your blogs! I do read yours, I just don't post mine. I will try to work backwards and catch up a little. :-)

My 29th Birthday!

(Okay, it is really my 44th birthday -- but don't tell!) For my birthday this year, Rick took me to Central Oregon for a weekend of fun and relaxation. We camped at Paulina Lake outside of Bend, then drove to our destinations from there. The area was SWARMING with mosquitos to the point that it was completely miserable, but when we drove into the resort community of SunRiver where the trailhead is for our first bike ride, we discovered what an incredible little place this is and we completely fell in love with it! The first thing we noticed was that the community sprayed for mosquitos!! We were mosquito-free!

Our plan was to mostly mountain bike -- which we did on the first day -- riding 24 miles round trip up and back along the Deschutes River. I only fell a couple of times and only skinned one knee! Whoo hoo! Once we rode out of the protection of SunRiver, we immediately noticed the appearance of mosquitos everywhere. We couldn't stop for fear of being eaten alive, so we rode for three straight hours without any rest. Later that afternoon, we relaxed at one of the two swimming pools back in SunRiver until we were hungry enough to drive into Bend for dinner (Johnny Carino's -- yum). Then we drove back to our campsite for a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, at the restaurant, we discovered that Rick had lost his camera somewhere in SunRiver and all of our pictures were lost with it. We still haven't found it, but are hoping that it will be turned in to the SunRiver police!

The next day, we slept in then took a lazy float down the Deschutes River, stopping at a couple of rope swings along the way. We ate lunch at a park, then drove to Bend to catch a movie. We had some time to kill before the movie so we walked along the river in Bend and got a bite to eat. While in the movie, a huge storm moved in and the power went out in the movie theater -- twice. We could hear the thunder rumbling around outside. The winds were also blowing and howling, but by the time we got back to our tent, the rain, wind, lightning, and thunder had all stopped!

We packed up early Sunday morning and drove home. The funniest part of the story is that when we got home, we noticed a bat hit my bike that was strapped to the top of my car. I must have hit him the night before and he rode there all day. This is the only picture of our trip I have:

When we got home, the kids had made this nice birthday cake for me! :-)