Rum pa pa pone... on my trombone (?)

Saturday was the Bend Christmas parade. This year was MUCH warmer than last year. This year we sat in 60 degree sunshine to watch the parade!! Hooray!

There were elves

and llamas (of course)

Who's Christmas parade doesn't have llama's in it??
pink Cadillac's pulling giant ducks
This one had an actual working train on a track that circled the float!

I took this pic for my dad 'cause I think this is the car he used to have B.C. (before children)

There were quite a few church floats focusing on Christmas too
Best of all however was the HDMS Jazz Band/Chorus Float!!!
Check out Samantha (in blue) playing the trombone

(again, if you double click on the video it takes you to the Youtube site where you can click under the image to watch the video in "high def", so you can see better)

Terrebonne Letterboxing

It was so nice on Saturday that we HAD to get out of the house. I didn't want to do the "same ol' same ol'" so I went online to find a letterbox. Letterboxing is always an adventure and always takes you to cool places. I chose a group of boxes in Terrebonne to go check out.

This place was REALLY off the beaten path and we would have never found Arch Canyon otherwise.

Here we are stamping in at our first find.

The next box was at the base of these cool rocks We also found some cool caves along the way

The view of the canyon was awesome too!

Ethan and Abby's favorite activity however was collecting shotgun shells! See how proud she is of her bounty? She called them her "babies"
Here's Ethan with the collection making his best "red neck" face.
Both letterboxing.org and atlasquest.com

are great resources for finding a letterbox near you and a fun adventure.

For any readers in Calgary, go check out our letterbox in Fish Creek park. The directions are here.

Thanksgiving Break

The kids had 10 days off school, which I love because I LOVE lazy mornings. Most days we just took our time getting out of the house with something to do each day, and I also had them work on a project (more info on that in another blog)

On Monday we went for one last adventure with the Victors and hiked up Pilot Butte. It has been so warm we were all sweating making our way up the butte.

The kids played around for awhile at the base of the butte before we headed over to Pilot Butte Drive In for some "good eats"

This year for Thanksgiving we decided to go to my favorite restaurant for dinner and it was WONDERFUL!!

No stress about getting everything ready and warm at the same time, and NO MESS!! I also wasn't forcing turkey down my kids' throats, because "If I made a turkey, you're going to eat it!" Instead they munched on whatever they wanted at the buffet. I could have my turkey and they could have their ham and everything was DELICIOUS!!

I don't think I'd want to eat out every year, but this year, it was PERFECT!!
(it was also very fun to be sitting next to the Victor's at the restaurant as they were leaving in the morning for their new home in Alaska)

Honey Do

On Monday Brad's "Honey Do List" was to put up the Christmas lights. We found this nifty pole and clip system last year which makes things pretty easy.

We weren't sure if we were putting lights on in Bend or Arizona, because it was 65 degrees!!See what fun a "Honey Do" list can be?
The final product.

We are missing one peak because Brad said he's too afraid he'll fall off the roof, but he has a good life insurance policy... I say go ahead and put them up! :-D J/K

Good job Brad!!

Save the trees!

The week before Thanksgiving Fred and Sandra were able to come visit us for a week. Since the kids were in school we were a bit limited on our adventures, but managed to take a trip out to Tumalo Falls.

Check out these strong men saving the tree that had been caught under a bunch of debris. Fred and Brad pulled off the debris so the tree will be able to grow.

I don't know what happened to the pictures I took at the game room at Eagle Crest, but it was one of the kids favorite activities while they were here. There was a ping pong table, air hockey and a few video games. They LOVED going there.

It is always nice to have visitors... when are YOU coming to visit??