NCAA basketball!

We went to see the regional finals (the Elite 8) of the NCAA women's basketball tournament. In a lucky happenstance, one of the teams competing was the University of Oregon Ducks - so fun!!! We went with friends the Qualls and the Foleys, and Seb got to bring Sam, so the whole thing was very festive and fun.

And to add to the excitement, Liesl lost a tooth in the 4th quarter. :)
Oregon Ducks won, the crowd went wild, and it was great. (Really loud, too, says Liesl.)

snow tubing

On Wednesday we woke up to a snowstorm -- big fat flakes of snow coming down -- Sebastian and I walked around the neighborhood parks enjoying the snow scene with Jasper and trying to catch them.

We then headed out to Mt Bachelor, to try out snow tubing on the mountain. It was a big hit with both children - they loved going up the rope tug and flying down, face-first, all the way to the bottom. Steve and I liked it for a bit but then got a bit dizzy.

For the last hour, the kids were sledding together - head first, gripping each other's snow tubes, and laughing all the way down the hill. It was pretty magical.

In the afternoon, I went for a run with Jasper and got caught in a hailstorm. We ran a couple miles out along the gorgeous Deschutes River trail, and when we turned I could see the low black clouds rolling in. I tried to get back to the car before it hit - it was the fastest mile I've run in a while - but the storm was too fast and we got absolutely soaked. The hail was coming down at a 45 degree angle into our faces and the temperature dropped 20 degrees in 10 minutes. Jasper was very unhappy and it was a good reminder to me that the weather around here is wildly unpredictable. (I came here in late September one year for a mama's weekend - as I recall, it was sunny in Sunriver and snowing on top of Broken Top.)

For our final dinner in Bend we went to Joolz, a Middle Eastern restaurant, and ate some delicious hummus and baba ghanouj and grape leaves and falafel and lamb. But first, we stopped by Ranch Records, an old-fashioned record store. Our AirBnB hosts are really into music, and have an old record player hooked up to surround sound in the living room. They left a gift certificate to encourage guests to add to their extensive collection. We picked out a record of Tom Petty's Greatest Hits.

And then after dinner at we went to the last Blockbuster in the United States. The kids were thrilled by the selection; Steve and I waxed nostalgic for our high school days, when Blockbuster was the only game in town to get movies, it was open really late, and you could hope for the thrill of scoring a just released movie on opening weekend.

Tumalo Falls snow hike

We ventured out today for another adventure, a 6-mile snowy hike up to Tumalo Falls. I was so proud of the kids for making it without complaint (well, almost.... the first mile is always hardest), and for the fun we had en route. We parked at Skyliner Sno-park and took the creekside trail up to the falls, picnicked there, and then walked down the (closed) road to the parking lot.

The creek trail was lovely - a hardpacked narrow trail through the woods, with many opportunities to detour into the trees and to sled down small hills and along the trail. We had so much fun sinking into the waist-deep snow, making and throwing snowballs, and eating snow. Poor Jasper is not a fan of sledding and frantically barks at us, physically tries to block the sled with his body, and even tries to grab onto the sled or children's arms with his teeth to slow them down. We have to resort to tying him to trees on steeper slopes - he tolerates slow runs.

 The kids ate a lot of snow... Seb said it was the only thing that kept him going. :)

The views across the creek to the cliffs on the other side became increasingly striking as we made our way up and deeper into the forest.

 Jump!

Liesl loved this view and asked me to take a photo of her in front of it. The creek is right on the other side of a steep dropoff here, and we could hear it gurgling as we walked.

And then, less than half a mile from our destination (3 miles into the hike), we ran into a bridge problem. Snow had fallen onto a narrow wooden bridge, creating an even narrower snow bridge 6 feet in the air across a rushing tributary of Tumalo Creek. It was a little slippery, but not terrible, and we humans made it across just fine. Jasper would not come -- he got his front paws on, but then when he felt the width with his back paws, he backed up and sat down. He barked, he whined, he could not be tempted with treats (not even cheese!). We tried and tried and he got increasingly upset. We tried to find a way across downstream, but the snow was too high to get down to the water and back out the other side. Sebastian then suggested going across a snow bridge upstream -- snow had fallen on some logs and was suspended in midair. We had no idea how strong it was, nor how many trees/logs of what thickness were under the 4 feet of snow crossing the creek. But Liesl and I were really upset at the idea that we wouldn't make it to see the waterfall, so Seb got me a big stick, I poked at the snow bridge, and then shimmied my way across on my behind, Jasper following behind. I made it, he made it, all was well, and phew!

 Tumalo Falls!!! Yay!!!

 The view of the falls from below and then from above, and then looking down the river valley at our path.

We ate some lunch on the hillside and did some sledding on a nice open hill at the top, happy that we'd brought the sled the whole way. And then we looped down along the road, which is closed to traffic in winter. It was wide open and sunny, and there were lots of people -- very different than the trail -- Liesl rode the sled a good part of the way down, with Sebastian acting as her motor for much of that time.

We were back home by midafternoon, tuckered out from the exertion and adventure. We cuddled up on the couch to watch the movie Christopher Robin, played some games, read some books, and got take-out for dinner. Even Jasper was tired and happy to curl up and sleep.