Bend, Oregon

 It had been far too long since we'd seen Nathan's parents so we scheduled a trip to Bend, Oregon for mid-June. With four kids now, it's a little cramped for us in one hotel room, especially with a baby. So we got a vacation rental property instead. It was a condo in a ski village with the kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom downstairs and a second bedroom upstairs for the kids. Their bedroom had a bunk bed and a futon. The kids took turns sleeping in each bed. It's kind of crazy to me that Bellana is big enough to sleep on the top bunk of a bed now. I wish I'd remembered to take a picture of their room. It was cute with modern, gray and white-striped blankets.

 Our room was pretty small with a queen bed--supposedly, but I swear it was a full--and a dresser and tv. We never used the tv and merely set up the baby's pack 'n play in front of the dresser and closet. It ended up being very hard to share a room with her. She would get so cold and wake up. But if we warmed up the room it was too hot for me. On the last two nights of our four-night trip we hauled the large mattress out to the living room to sleep on and let the baby have the room to herself. Unfortunately, I still didn't sleep well because the light outside the front door shone right on me and I couldn't wear my earplugs because I needed to be available to Zaylia. She has such a soft cry and Nathan never wakes up. At least Zaylia got more sleep those nights!

The kitchen was so small and could really have used a cookie sheet but it was cute and fun to stay in that little condo. We arrived on a Saturday and set about putting the kids straight to bed. Nathan's mom popped over to visit for a few minutes.

My brilliant plan of renting a condo so we'd have a place for us all to meet was thwarted when I realized that Nathan's dad is not able to climb stairs since breaking his hip. And the condo was--of course--on the second floor. We had to improvise with short visits to their apartment and meeting at restaurants for the rest of it. (I won't make that mistake again!)

The kids had a hard time going to bed in the same room, as we expected. But they finally got to sleep.

Sunday morning we went to Pa and Frammy's ward. The members were very welcoming and kept asking if we were new. I had to leave in the middle of Sacrament meeting to feed the baby, as usual, and ended up making an amazing discovery: this ward had the most tricked-out Mother's Lounge I have ever seen! (Again, no picture.) It was located behind a door inside the bathroom. The first thing I noticed was that the room was lit by a skylight when the lights were off, which let in just enough light to make a calm, sleepy environment. There were three nice rocking chairs with arm rests. (My Mother's Lounge only had two until I convinced someone who was getting rid of an uncomfortable rocking chair to add it to the room, so now three are crammed into the tiny room.) This room wasn't cramped. It had a boppy nursing pillow! There were pictures of babies on the walls, like Anne Geddes type. Someone had put up nick-knack shelves with cute baby things on them. There was a little laundry basket full of pillows that perhaps a tired toddler would want to sleep on. There was even a baby monitor, although I'm not sure in what case that would be used. I was so impressed with all the work someone had gone to!

We left after Sacrament meeting to get the kids some lunch and a nap for Bellana. Then we went to Frammy and Pa's apartment and got to see Pa.

 He and Zaylia took to each other.

 We tried to stay out of trouble.

 Then it was time for dinner! Frammy and Pa treated us to dinner at the Black Bear Diner. They had fun bear carvings and decorations,

 including a little scene of bears fishing in front of the restaurant. You can see it through the glass behind the kids. A lot of the bears were dressed up for Independence Day.

 The food was soooo good. But my favorite part was when I took Zaylia to the rest room to change her diaper. I pulled down the changing table and found this:

I laughed right out loud! And then I laughed and laughed some more, probably for about a minute. I am not normally a fan of graffiti but, oh, this is awesome!

We had intended to go on a family hike on Sunday but kind of ran out of time. Nathan took Annalee and Vander on a walk in the wooded area surrounding our condo while Bellana was napping. Annalee tripped and went down hard, skinning her knee. Dad had to carry her back home. The area around us was so pretty. One day when we were leaving our condo we saw a doe not too far off the road! We tried not to exclaim over it too much because there was no way Bellana could see it from her spot in the car.

On Monday we decided to "do Bend" and drove Downtown to walk around. I put Zaylia in the baby wrap on my front but decided to face her outward this time so she could see what was going on. I didn't know the right wrap for that, though, so it made it a lot harder to hold her. We walked up and down the sidewalks, looking in windows. We found a toy store that was practically calling our names and we just had to go inside. The kids begged us to buy them a toy so we said they could spend their own money on something.

 Bellana couldn't decide so I decided for her. She used her birthday money from Grandma and Papa Beek to get a Melissa & Doug Cookie Set. It had high quality wooden cookies held together like a tube of refrigerated cookie dough by Velcro. You could actually cut them apart with a knife and put them on the cookie sheet and then decorate them with wooden frosting and more Velcro.  Annalee and Vander had such a hard time choosing. Everything they wanted was $50 or more but they only had $10 each to spend. Annalee finally settled on a pair of handcuffs and Vander got a slingshot rocket. Vander rocket turned out to be a fun toy to play with in our two-story living room at the condo. It was soft enough that it didn't hurt anything. But the soft tip broke off after only a few shots. He immediately developed buyer's remorse and wished for a pair of handcuffs like Annalee. By the time we got back to Idaho, Annalee had lost interest in the handcuffs and decided to sell them to Vander. I allowed the trade since he had money to buy his own from the store anyway. Within a day of buying them the casing split open and the spring flew out of one side so that one of them doesn't work now. Cheap toys. Jeez.

After the toy store we were starving. There was a Starbucks not too far away with a nice patio to eat at, and I happened to have a gift card to Starbucks. So we got a few sandwiches. Vander had been desperate for a hard boiled egg for a few days, for some reason. Lo and behold, one of the sandwich packs had a boiled egg instead of a sandwich! Zaylia gummed an apple slice. She was not quite ready for solids at 6 months, even though she is very interested in whatever we are eating.

We went home for naps after that, which was a sore trial for three kids who only want to swim!  We had been talking up the swimming pool at this condo for months. It was a bummer that we arrived so late on a Saturday and that the next day was Sunday. The kids begged us to go swimming on Sunday, so we talked about it.

Me: Do we go swimming on Sunday?
Annalee: No. But can we go just this time?
Me: Okay, let's think about it. We make Sunday different than the other days to show respect to Heavenly Father. So do we want to go swimming on Sunday and NOT on Monday and Tuesday? Or not swim on Sunday and go on Monday and Tuesday?

The wheels turned fast inside their heads and they chose the latter. It was such a nice pool. There was a large pool with a big three-foot-deep section and a smaller 6-foot deep end. A stone's throw away was a toddler pool. At one point, Annalee and Vander were throwing a ball from one to the other.

 There were also two hot tubs, one hotter than the other. It seemed like one or the other of them was always closed for chemical addition.

 Frammy came over Monday afternoon to hang out with us. It ended up being just a little cool, so Zaylia didn't get it. Mom held her and took pictures while we played.

 Large pine trees encircled the pool area so a part of the pool was always shaded and we could move from sun to shade whenever we wanted, according to comfort level.

 We had brought the red lady bug float for Zaylia but Bellana cruised all around in it. Vander ended up using the water wings we'd brought for Bellana. The kids each had goggles too, which they loved.

Tuesday we swam again, this time without Mom. It was a little warmer so Zaylia joined us. Look at my pale babies blinding the camera.

 The anticipation!

 Zaylia wasn't sure about the water at first. We put her in her baby life jacket and sunglasses. Then we had a hat on her and put her in the lady bug float. She looked like such a dork! All that was missing was a stripe of sunscreen on her nose! Eventually, we decided we didn't need the life jacket. She rode around in the lady bug and had a great time playing with the water in front of her.  Of everything on our trip, the time we spent swimming together as a family was my very favorite, which is surprising since neither Nathan or I really like swimming and had rather been dreading it. We just played and enjoyed each other.

My least favorite moment occurred when Nathan and his dad went to a movie one afternoon. I had a hard time keeping the older kids quiet so the little ones could nap. When Bellana woke up from her nap she yelled for me. I ran up to see what was wrong. She was sitting at the foot of the bed, on the top bunk, by the ladder. She told me she was poopy. I prayed that it was only inside her diaper. It wasn't. She had poop on her hands, on her clothes, and--worst of all--on the beautiful, modern gray and white-striped blanket and sheet. I freaked. Nooooo! What was I going to do? We didn't even have a washing machine in the unit! The complex had a laundromat but would cheap coin machines be able to get poop out? I had brought some detergent with me in a sandwich bag, just in case, but would I need stain remover? Would a blanket even fit in the machines? How much would these cost to replace? I had planned ahead sooo well, I thought. I'd brought a mattress protector with us and put it on top of the sheet and had Bellana sleep on it just in case, even though she rarely leaked in her bed. But the mess had happened after she'd moved off the protector. NOT FAIR! Waaaaaaaaaa!

Panicked, I called Mom and asked if I could wash them at her house. I didn't have my car because Nathan had taken it. I sent him a text that said, "You owe me big."  By the time Mom arrived to pick up the blanket, it occurred to me that I should have at least tried to wash it first to see if it would work. If it didn't, at least Mom wouldn't have to take a poopy blanket to her house. So I decided to try. To my profound relief, I discovered that the blanket was a duvet cover and that the poop hadn't leaked through to the inside. It also hadn't leaked through the sheet to the very thick, not-easily-washable mattress cover underneath. Yay for solid poo! I sent them both through the wash and rejoiced when they came clean. Nathan came home with a box of expensive donuts and we laughed.

Mom and Dad took us to dinner at Panda Express that night. Zaylia had so many cute moments with Pa that I couldn't stop taking pictures and couldn't even decide which ones not to post. So I'm posting them all.

Frammy and Bellana bonded too, and not just because Frammy had a smart phone.

 It was adorable.

Oh yeah, and these guys were there.

 On Wednesday we packed everything up and stopped by Pa and Frammy's apartment one more time.

 Frammy held Bellana while Nathan and the kids played a rousing dice game. It was one of those games--like Chutes and Ladders or War--that could, theoretically, go on for infinity. I fed Zaylia and then we had to end the game and say that the person with the most points won.

 Everyone gave hugs to everyone, including Vander giving me a hug, even though he was coming with us!

I'm so glad we got to visit Pa and Frammy! We had a special time with them.

On the way out of town we decided to drive to the top of Pilot Butte. Bend, Oregon is one of only four U.S. cities to have an extinct volcano within the city limits.

 Nathan had originally wanted to hike it, but when we saw people bent double trying to climb the steep trails I was glad we were driving! There was a sundial-thing in the center of the top that had lines going out in every direction, pointing at the different mountains you could see from the top. Here are the three sisters in front of The Three Sisters mountains.

 And the rest of us, even though we didn't have matching mountains.

We stopped in Burns, Oregon on the way there and the way back. Nathan and the kids played in a different park each time while I nursed Zaylia. I always joke that I hate Burns because we got stuck there for hours and hours one trip when our car broke down. It was a Sunday and a holiday too, so nothing was open. But really, they have nice parks.

Also on the way home we pulled over for the Shoe Tree. The original tree was burned down in 2010 by some idiot. (A vandal vandalizing our socially-acceptable vandalism!) This is what it used to look like.

But someone has started a new tree. It only has a modest amount of shoes in its branches. We didn't add anything to it but it was fun to see.