Prologue: It has been quite sometime since the last blog posting. The frenziness factor has definitely become much lower, kids in a routine (school and extracurricular activities), so a mellower activity level has pervaded our existence in Oregon, a welcome change.
27 October: My folks (Jose Sr and Anita) travelled up to White Salmon from Bend, Oregon to collect us on Sunday morning. They got to White Salmon before Nick, Sam and me had returned from the previous night's football game (Oregon State Beavers versus the Stanford Cardinal) in Corvalis Oregon. Note the 3 three musketeers got a late start because we stayed up so late (actually Sam had a reasonably good sleep). The 3 hour car trip down to Bend Oregon from White Salmon was straightforward and we settled into my folks house. We had dinner with the Soraya (sister), Dirk (brother-n-law), Ella (cousin) and Reese (cousin) who also live nearby in Bend. No one except me had met Reese before, so it was great for everyone to meet her. We then settled in for a good and much needed night of rest.
28 October: The next day we woke up to more winter/autumn like conditions, namely snow falling. The kids had only experienced this when we were travelling over Monarch Pass in Colorado in route to eastern Utah earlier in the month. Here are a couple of pics of the kids in the backyard.
29 October: Well after travelling around in Spain and few other European countries over the previous 3 months, we were hunkering down in Bend Oregon for a couple of months, so we needed some basic equipment, namely bikes. Robsie and I acquired second-hand (used)ones for each of the kids. Here are the girls getting used to their new wheels on the quiet suburban street.
30 October: Tis the day before Halloween, so some preparations were required. Here's Robsie making a jack-o-lantern, the finished product at night (good job Robsie), and the cousins chowing up the night before to ensure high energy levels for the next night's adventures.
31 October: OK, today is one the huge American traditional days that being Halloween. To give an indication of the flavor of the event here is someone' house the morning of said day that Robsie took. Now that's dedication to the day's theme!
My sister's family, the Renner's are BIG-TIME Halloween aficionados, so lots of pics for this day on this blog. First up our kids outfits at the abuelos (grandfolks) house, namely wolverine (Sam), spider girl (Luca) and a nice witch (Frankie).
The Renner's went with a Spanish flamenco theme this year, looking good and ole (as in phonetically 'olay'...).
The abuelos and their not so young oldest and youngest kids.
A picture of the abuelo with cat woman prior to embarking on trick or treating.
And here is the entire Romero-Renner clan present in Bend for Halloween 2013.
And all the younger kids right before the trick or treating kick off.
Within several houses of Soraya and Dirk's place is a real world Clark Griswold modeled after National Lampoon's Vacation series. Naturally this was the first house to kick off the evening's trick or treating activities. Here is a pic of this guy's house with 'cob webs' stretching all over the place.
This gentleman is 'Clark', the owner of the premises, complete with freaky eyes.
Clark's premises and his appearance did get a jolly laugh out of everyone. By the way those are holograms of ghosts in the bedroom window above the front door entry!
An action shot of Reese getting a treat.
It was a long evening of walking around the most excellently adorned houses in the neighborhood, so this pram/trolley was converted into a travelling refreshment cart, many a random parent was provided with fluids to celebrate All Hallows Day.
Here's the abuela with a number of kids becoming weary as we trodded on collecting treats.
Here's another shot of the house first highlighted this morning at night. Note the ghost hologram in the window.
And here's the wolverine and I appreciating the finer details of this particular exhibit.
A great evening out collecting treats, and then another hour with the kids sorting out their bounty...
And sampling it. What a great fun-filled evening in a country that does Halloween like no other!
2 November: While in Spain we picked up some red flamenco dresses for the girls, as well as for the cousins. Here they are in the abuelo's house showing off their wares.
Today we had dinner at a 'kid friendly' pizza place on the banks of the Deschutes River in the Old Mill district of Bend. Here's some pics.
3 November: Since arriving in Bend we had been eyeing a large park on the outskirts called Shevlin Park, so off we went. Here are the two little cousins hanging out by a beautiful stream (Tumalo Creek) that runs through the park.
Ample room for Dirk and I to throw the football in the park as well.
Afterwards the two little cousins chilled out in the recliner with the abuelo.
And then I riled them up again via wrestling matches.
5 November: As we were staying in Bend for quite some time and the kids had enough solo time with their parents, we started getting them involved in extra-curricular activities. First up enrolling Frankie and Luca into gymnastics.
7 November: And then signing up Sam and Frankie to indoor rock climbing.
8 November: And then enrolling Frankie and Sam into Ponderosa Elementary, the neighborhood school where there cousin Ella goes. Here's a pic of them on their first day of school.
The cousins from White Salmon (Anya and Ari) came down for the weekend, and here are all the cousins the evening after the first day of their stay.
9 November: Today was a coolish day as suggested in this pic of Robsie with Reese on her shoulders heading over to the park for a play.
Eventually after a day of playing outside it was time to head over to a great micro-brewery called the Crux. Great location with a fantastic outdoor area for the kids to frolic...
And the over-21s to sample a great assortment of really good beverages.
That eventually led to activities such as nose pageants...
Activities at the Crux carried on well into the night, fortunately the kids were well clothed for the occasion.
And the elder contingent had this fantastic outdoor fire to keep us comfortable.
10 November: Prior to Nick, Sarah, Anya and Ari departing back to White Salmon after their weekend visit, we had a final excursion to a nice park in Bend.
12 November: Today the girl's had gymnastics, here's Frankie showing off her considerable flexibility.
13 November: Today Sam started his 5-on-5 futsal league competition, here's a few snaps of the action.
During this week I went down to Eureka for a quick trip to get the rest of my stuff from the ancestral dwelling and to get a rental property in shape for some new tenants. Here's a pic of some of the wildlife outside of the abuelo's Eureka house while I was packing up.
14 November: Today was Reese's 3rd birthday, here are some snaps of her family birthday party with the cousins.
16 November: We went on a weekend excursion to the upper Deschutes River today in Newberry Volcanic National Monument to the south of Bend. It was cold as indicative of this frozen pond next to the river.
And off we go across the bridge and down the trail.
As a light snow shower was occurring.
The river was quite scenic with a narrow cut canyon through a lava flow plain with some impressive whitewater sections.
Kids eventually got a bit tuckered out, so it was time to turn around after a couple of miles of hiking.
After the hike we did a bit of lava rock collecting on this large lava plain below this sizeable cinder cone.
17 November: Today Reese celebrated her birthday party with her friends at a bouncy castle sort of place.
Complete with birthday cake...
Eating cake...
Observers...
And a birthday throne to open up the presents.
20 November: Today we captured a shot of Sam getting off the classic American school bus...
And Sam in action during his second futsal league double-header!
And Sam with his second most ardent futsal support, the abuelo, after a game, the first being the abuela!
21 November: Today after dropping off Robsie at yoga, I drove up to the top of Pilot Butte in the middle of Bend, which I have been meaning to do for nearly a month to check out the views, I was not disappointed... Here's a shot of Mount Bachelor in the background with downtown Bend in the foreground.
A close-up snap of Mount Bachelor, the strato-volcano where we will spend much of our skiing in the upcoming month-n-half...
The other peaks in the immediate vicinity to the north of Mount Bachelor, from left to right Broken Top (jaggedy one at ca. 9000 feet), south sister, and then middle and north sister to the right. All of the Sisters are over 10,000 feet and rank 3rd, 4th and 5th in terms of highest peaks in Oregon. During the last glacial period (ca. 10,000 years ago) this was under 500 feet of ice!
Here's a a snap of Mount Jefferson (2nd highest peak in Oregon, a touch above 10,600 feet), a classic shaped volcano, which also has the distinction of being the oldest volcano in this region withstanding the ravages of glacial scouring over the past 600,000 years.
And even further to the north is Mount Hood (11,457 feet and highest point in Oregon), where Robin and I have booked 2 nights of skiing sans kids in early December.
To the northeast of Bend are the world class climbing area of Smith Rocks...
After school, Sammy and Frankie had another crack at the climbing walls at Bend Rock Gym.
And during the evening a typical wind-down activity before bedtime (or perhaps better said wind-up activity) of the abuelo and Luca.
