Vacation

We had a short, but much needed vacation this weekend to Bend, Oregon. We had a great little condo near the Deschutes River and spent the weekend hiking, napping, eating, and swimming. It was 80 degrees and sunny the whole time, but now that we're home Fall has set in. I think we'll be in the 60's all week.

Here are some pictures from the hike the first day. Avery did great! It was a really challenging trail with lots of steep hills, rocks, and cliffs. But Avery walked the whole 2 1/2 hours herself! Such a little hiker!!

The resort also had this great pool that was just Avery's size. She had so much fun swimming around in 2 feet of water!

Avery also had lots of fun at the playground while her mommy got to sit by the pool and relax. Here is our fearless climber!

We took a different trail the next day - it was just as beautiful!

Somehow we forgot to get the camera out to get some good mountain shots while in Bend, but we remembered on the drive home. It was such a pretty place, and these mountains were amazing up close. Great vacation!!

Gramma Connie's visit...

Avery's Gramma Connie visited this weekend. We had such a great time! Here are a few of the pictures we took.

Avery rode her bike to the park (she still refuses to peddle though)...

Poor ducks!

Mom and I went for pedicures for my birthday, and Avery insisted on getting her nails done later that night too. Of course she picked purple!

Camping

We finally got around to taking Avery on her first camping trip a few weeks ago. But...after driving around for 8 hours all over Mt Hood, we still had not found a campground with any sites open. Apparently everyone else in Portland decided to head to the mountain to go camping that weekend too. The saddest part was on our way home when I sarcastically asked Avery if she had a good day, she said "yes! we went camping today!!". So, in order to teach her that sitting in the car for 8 hours is not really camping, we decided to camp out in the backyard the next night. Here are some pictures from our weekend...

Once we gave up on finding a spot to camp, we stopped for dinner at the Timberline Lodge (where The Shining was filmed) before heading home. It is right at the top of Mt Hood and had some beautiful views. We got out and hiked around a bit before dinner too. Poor Trot and Avery were cooped up for so long in the car!

Avery was so excited about the tent!! She kept running around it trying to figure out how to get in there!

Avery loved being inside the tent. She also thought it was so cool once we went to bed that Trot was sleeping in here with us. Can't wait to take her on a real camping trip next year!

After dinner we had a nice campfire. Avery was really good around the fire.

Trot, on the other hand, was scared to death of the fire and spent a good couple of hours hiding in Avery's playhouse.

This was probably the one thing about camping with a 2 year old that we should have skipped. Filling Avery up with smores at night was not our brightest idea. She normally goes to bed around 7, this night she was still bouncing off the tent walls long after 10!