balloons over bend

A couple weeks ago we headed over the mountains for the annual Balloons Over Bend, a hot air balloon festival in our beloved Central Oregon. First we spent a wonderful day and night with Shane's mom and Darell and had fun swimming in their neighborhood pool, riding the four wheeler and hanging out together.

 After a night in Crooked River Ranch, we drove into Bend and hiked around Lava Lands and drove up to the top butte where we hiked around the perimeter of the lava butte. I'll admit I was a little nervous taking 5 little ones up there but they loved it and the view was spectacular. It was also very educational as we learned about volcanoes and various kinds of rock in the museum/information building.

 After leaving Lava Lands we were super hot and needed a treat so we drove to nearby Sunriver to get some ice cream and wander the shops. Here is West sharing his ice cream with Silas.

We next headed to a house we rented in Bend with our friends the Mulkey's for the weekend. Shane's parents met us for pizza dinner there and then the girls and I headed out to the night glow for the Balloons Over Bend festival.

 The next morning we got up at 5:30 am in order to go watch the hot air balloons get ready and although it was painful waking up five peacefully sleeping children we did and it was a lot of fun once we were up and there. Unfortunatly all the balloons were gone by 6:30 am and we were left with nothing to do at that hour except find the nearest bakery and get donuts!

Would you believe that the following morning we did the same thing and went to watch the balloons take off at 5 am?! We did! During our weekend in Bend we also had lots of fun walking around Drake Park, downtown, visiting the old fashioned candy shop and preparing big meals together at the rental house. Our friends that we went with also have two girls (one of their girls is named Tirzah!) and two boys just our boys ages.

The baby boys in their strollers in front of the candy shop; not old enough to know what they are missing.