Trip to Sunriver

In early August, we made our trek down to Sunriver, OR, as we usually do every summer (except for last summer.)  It's a three to four hour car ride and we meet up with Emily's family down there.

During the ride, Karina was showing off her bubble gum blowing skills.

We rented a house down there for a few days and it's in a resort with a pool, tennis courts, and lots of other fun activities.

One of the things you can do is check-out the stand up paddle boards.  The girls enjoyed doing this.

At the lake, you can also use their kayaks which Xiao Yu did with Aunt Gretchen.

After the temperatures warmed up a bit, the kids then went to the pool.  It was in the 80's but overcast...pretty good weather!

The kids bounced between the pool and the hot tub.

And on the lake, you can also go fishing, which the kids enjoyed doing.

The resort also has a golf course, and our rental backs up to it.  The kids really enjoyed exploring the area and hunting for golf balls that golfers have left behind.  They wander around and look especially closely in the areas with tall grasses and brush.

By the end of the trip, they amassed quite a few balls.

Gretchen took Xiao Yu on walks every day around the resort, which he enjoyed very much.

One day, we went white water rafting in the Deschutes River.  It only has class 1 and 2 rapids, but the kids really enjoy it.  This time was Gabe and Xiao Yu's first time coming with us.

While we were waiting to get ferried to the river, the kids played with a ginormous checkers set.

And corn hole...

On the bus ride there, the kids made silly faces.

These two boys were inseparable.  They fed off of each other's energy and definitely the sum was more than the parts.

Here are some normal faces.

Here is a picture that the company took of our boat.  It was fun and the kids got water splashed on to their faces.

While out there, Elvin took the opportunity to go fly fishing at a river called the Fall River.

It has really clear water and you can actually see the fish resting at the bottom of this section of the river.  However, after several hours of trying, no fish were interested in biting what was on offer.

There was also downtime when the kids just hung out or watched the Olympics.

After a couple days of going into the pool, but not washing his hair, Gabe's hair took on a different texture.  It became very malleable and was able to defy gravity too.  It took several washing afterwards, plus conditioner, to get his hair back to a semblance of normal.

The kids enjoyed going to the game room for a round of pool.

And one day we decided to check out tennis rackets.  Except for Gabe, this was their first time playing.

There were no long rallies, but they had fun swinging at the ball.

And there is a section of the Deschutes River which is very slow and meandering and known to be good for inner tubing.  We rented several inner tubes and floated down the river for 1.5 hours.

We also rented a huge stand-up paddle board, at the suggestion of the worker, because we had several kids with us.  It turned out to be the best thing because it was so large--about 8 feet long and 5 feet wide--that it was like a platform that the kids could jump into the river from.  Which they did the whole time.  Much to our surprise, they declared afterwards that this was unequivocally their favorite part of the entire trip.  Go figure.

And we went to the local shops to window shop and browse.  Karina ended up buying a stuffed animal in the shape of an elephant made out of alpaca fur.  This is similar to the stuffed animals that Gabe and Eliana had bought months earlier.

And speaking of alpacas...on the way home, we stopped at the alpaca farm that we've visited before.

We bought the little bag of pellets that you can use to feed the animals.

The kids tried giving preference to the little ones as opposed to the adults.

Eliana fed them, but was always wary and on guard against any that are showing any signs of sneezing on her.  If you recall, the last time we visited this farm, a full-grown alpaca sneezed onto the front of her jacket and left a blast of green slime on it about the size of a dinner plate.

And that was our trip!  Until next time, Sunriver!