Sunriver!

As I mentioned before, we have some wonderful friends who generously rent us their vacation home at a stunningly low rate, allowing our little family to take longer and nicer vacations than we would ever be able to afford on our own.

I try and make vacations a priority, and have our family get away together at least two times a year. Even when money is really tight, it's usually figured out in the budget somewhere. I feel like that little time away together is so important for us. If you've been around here for awhile, you know my mantra is close families don't just happen. You have to be intentional about it.
Vacations are my favorite way to do that =).
I feel like honestly, it's a gift to my family...getting Vacation Momma. She is so much fun. I mean, Regular Momma tries to squeeze in fun pretty often in our day to day lives, but Vacation Momma is always a blast.
She's so relaxed.
And she's so much sillier.
=)

While we generally keep to our schedule on vacations, it's so much easier to be lenient about, well...everything! For instance, one of our vacation traditions is to get donuts for breakfast at least one morning we're away.
Don't feel like consuming an ounce of protein for breakfast? Just two donuts? Yeah...okay.
Wanna stay up a little later tonight?? I think that's a great idea!
Family Movie Night every night we're away? Of course!

Even though Time Outs, struggles, and disappoints still occur, they are few and far between on vacation.
Because the only thing vying for our attention is playing together.

And I feel like that pulls us all in tightly together, so that we're okay when we come back home if the schedules and frustrations of day to day stretch us out a bit.


So in 2013, both our family vacations took place at The Adventure House =)


We just love it there. Sunriver was tons of fun in the Winter, but even more fun in the Summer! We had a blast riding bikes, swimming, eating dinner on the porch, going for walks and watching the wild life.


We got to stay 4 nights and 5 days!!



We left after I got home from work on Friday, and got there late Friday night. To Dave and I's surprise, the twins did not fall asleep on our way over! It was just shy of 11pm when we pulled up to the house, and the kids were looney.

We got them quickly settled and then Dave and I unpacked and settled in ourselves.

Our first morning there we loaded up and headed out on a bike ride. One of my favorite things about Sunriver is the endless, beautiful bike trails.  Abbey and Luke were so excited to go exploring!

 We stopped and played at this cute little park outside the Aquatic center for a bit...

My sweet Abigail and I...

Our crazy adorable boy...

So big!!!

My three loves...=)

We biked around a bit more, then headed back to the house for lunch and Quiet Time.
That afternoon we put on our swimsuits and sunscreen and biked down to play at the Aquatic Center...

The SHARC area had this super cool beachy area, and Abbey could have lived there. She had so much fun here. I just pulled a chair in there and soaked up some sun while watching her play...

Momma was here...



Luke came to see what Ab's was up to, and ended up spending a good hour in here playing with her...

 

 We swam and swam and played and swam some more, and hours later, we were all ready to head back...

We biked home, enjoyed dinner and family movie night together =).

The next day we had a leisurely morning at the house and then headed down to the SHARC center again.

Ab's was all about the sand again.



Later we biked to get pizza for dinner...

...and then biked over for ice cream at Goody's...

We biked all over that evening, just enjoying the beautiful scenery...

The next morning the kids and I were getting ready to go for a walk, and walked outside the house to see this...

I was so stunned it was so close to us! I even had Dory with us (on leash) and the dear still seemed unfazed.

Luke took this picture of us...

That evening we went to a local park and played...

And then back to the house to relax in the "hot pool", as the kids call it =).

The next morning we got up and headed to the SHARC center to play. It was our last day in Sunriver, but since we were staying at a friends house, we didn't have a rigid check out time, so we were able to really enjoy the full day of vacation =)

Early afternoon we decided to bike back the house and finish packing and cleaning to leave. We were so sad our vacation had to end, but so grateful for the fun we got to have!