Grandma Alice and Aunt Kathryn came to visit last week, which was perfect timing as Piper's school was closed. With both being retired teachers, they kept the kids busy with lots of art projects and book reading and even cookie making. They went to parks, played in the yard and woke up early every morning with the kids. What a nice break with twice the help feeding the kids, getting them dressed, changing diapers, filling water bottles etc...
Then the extra special gift that Alice and Kathryn gave us was a night away for our 9th anniversary! We chose to take the camper up to Elk Lake and enjoyed a simple evening of peaceful paddleboarding and dinner at the lodge. Then slept in until 9:30am before heading back to the lodge for a lazy breakfast and adventurous hike around Elk Lake. Just the two of us, it felt so great and EASY! We love our kids, but the freedom of a kid-less 24 hours is sure rejuvenating. It was fun reminiscing the last 9 years and trying to remember what we used to do before our kids dominated our every move. We hiked. Every weekend we would pick a different hike in this book of hikes we had and just go! We covered a lot of ground in those days, we still get out just not to the same level as back then. We snuck into movies, 2 at a time on those especially dark rainy winter afternoons! Shhhhhh don't tell! =-) We traveled. There was one year we were gone four months out of the year. Not all at once, but 2 weeks here, 10 days there, a month somewhere else. Ahhhh flexibility.
I feel so lucky to have had the past 9 + years side by side with my best friend, soul mate and man I want to spend the rest of my life with. I knew from the moment we became a pair that my life would be more interesting/exciting/scary/amazing than I could have ever imagined on my own. We live outside the box, and I love it. I am so thankful for the path we have been on, our life is good. I am also excited to see where our path takes us as we change together and choose together as our life journey moves on. Cheers to our marriage as the love has deepened every year, may the connection we feel be infinite +1!
After the anniversary bliss Gma Alice and Aunt Kathryn drove the kids up to camp before heading back to catch their flight back to Arizona. It felt great to know that their time with the kids went smooth and they loved every minute of the grand kid time too. Thank you Alice and Kathryn for your great visit and all the love you poured into our children!
The rest of the weekend was spent camping with the Kuhn Family. Brandi and Josh were some of our first friends in Bend, so it was fun to continue the memory making times! The kids all got along great and had fun swimming and paddleboarding too.
Just before we were packing up to head home Dave, Piper, Josh, Kaya and Zoie were playing on the floating dock. Doing flips, handstands etc, when a voice from a near by boat came shouting over to Dave with something sarcastic. Ha, it was my Uncle Jack and Aunt Joanne visiting Bend from Seattle for the weekend. Kind of crazy to run into them up at a random lake (there are hundreds of lakes along the Cascade Lake Highway), but it was fun to see them and chat it up for a little bit.
Our friend Jeremy brought his newly acquired sailboat and the guys took it out for a wild ride one windy morning. They were having lots of fun until a pin came loose and the sail ripped as it plunged into the water. Luckily they were close to shore and able to paddle back to the boat launch.
We also had a visit from Grandpa Richard for several days in which we packed in lots of our favorite Bend activities to show off how we live. We rode bikes, went to parks, walked to restaurants and Grandpa Richard even got to try out the paddleboard! It was a great visit, thanks for visiting, hopefully next time Grammy can come too!
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