Sunriver, OR - July 2016

Normally I do these posts in order, kind of in a narrative fashion, but today I'm just going to  tell about the trip by way of putting the pictures and captioning them.  I'm honestly too busy to try and sort them out chronologically.  So this will have to do!

So we went to Sunriver, Oregon, July 23-30.  We stayed in this big, 4 bedroom house with my parents and my sister.  Corky came down on the 24th and left the 25th and Mara and I stayed the whole time.  My sister was participating in the Oregon High Desert Classic (horse show) in Bend, so we made a vacay out of it.

The first morning we were there was my birthday, July 24th.  Mara woke up early that day and we went out to the living room to make coffee (for me) and breakfast (for Mara) while everyone else slept.  I glanced out the window into the backyard and saw a deer munching away on the vegetation in the yard!  I pointed her out to Mara, who looked and tried hard to make sense of this animal.  She'd never seen a deer before, so the closest thing she could come up with was "Zeebah!" (Zebra).  Cute!

We ventured into Sunriver Village after Corky arrived on my birthday.  There is a little train there for kids to ride.  Mara LOVED it!  She kept saying, "oh, train!" every time she saw it.  It cost $20 for a 10-punch ticket, which we burned through in about 2 days!

Choo choo!!!

Mara running around the village

That night, for my birthday, we went to Pasting in the Old Mill District.  Mara, who was fighting a virus, was basically on hunger strike.  She would, however, eat ice cream!  So she ate my birthday sundae.  Spumoni.. mmmm :)

Here are some pictures from hanging around the house one (hot) afternoon:

Face timing with Corky after he left

Mara hanging out on the porch.  The essence 

of summertime as a kid! :)

I bought her these Paint With Water booklets.  Here she is

creating beautiful artwork on the porch while drinking juice.

Hanging out at Auntie Hannah's horse show:

It was about 95F this day. SO HOT!

Before coffee:

After coffee:

One day, my sister and I rented stand-up paddle boards and hopped 

into the Deschutes River.  We paddled downstream for like two 

hours!  We didn't see many fish but we did see a lot of bugs.

Soaked and happy after paddle boarding!

Some more toddler craziness:

This apple was actually meant for Hannah's horse lol

And on our last day, Mara took Papa for one more spin on the train: