What to do on a rainy Sunday?

Build a 8'x2' raised bed garden! Why not right? That’s what we decided to do yesterday. 

Nothing major, but a fun little Sunday project. Here are some pics from the day.

Bend or bust...

Last week we took advantage of a couple of vacation days and headed about 3 hours southeast of Portland to Bend. Bend is a really cool high desert town on the eastern cascades right at the base of Mt Bachelor and a number of other peaks. The great thing about Bend in the winter is that you can mountain bike on dry trails east of town or head west into the mountains and play in the snow. There aren’t a whole lot of places that you can mountain bike, climb and or ski in the same day.

We took 3 pups with us – Maddie, Seppie and Cody – packed the camper on the truck and took off. The first two days were full of mountain biking. Another great thing about the area is that it is mostly surrounded by national forest or BLM land. We were able to find great places to camp both nights pretty far off the beaten path.

Enjoy the pics. There is also one video below… though we have not edited it at all but it is just a fun clip of what mountain biking with the dogs is like.

Mountain biking Horse Ridge

Lunch/nap time before riding another loop

We scored an amazing site to set up camp

Hangin' out

Dinner time

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Intently watching Wendy make breakfast

Looking out at the 3 Sisters

Morning coffee/hike

Lots of smells out here

Snowshoeing near Mt Bachelor

We capped it all off with a cupcake from Ida's Cupcakes

Here's the video. Not the best but...

Hope you enjoyed.

Peace,
All of us!

Beach Trip

Wow… we have been pretty bad about updating this blog! Life is keeping all of us very busy and once we get home, we tend to try to keep the computers off… except for playing music on Pandora.

We had a pretty special beach trip with the horses and dogs a few weeks back. Bobbie, Vince’s boss, came with us to ride Reno and happened to bring a really nice camera and her amazing photography skills. She got some great pictures. It was an amazing day – sunny and in the 50’s. Who would have thought for February in Oregon?

The pictures are much better than our creative writing so let’s get straight to the good stuff…

Maddie

 Sam

Empty pristine Oregon beaches are hard to beat.

Cody wore himself out chasing birds

Jumping drift wood

One of the best pics of the day

Sep man

Almost looking like I know what I'm doing

Bobbie and Reno

Beach + Horse = Happy Wendy

Vince might be pointing to the surf saying "I need a new wetsuit!"

Thanks for reading. We will once again try to keep this blog updated a little more frequently.

Peace,

All 14 of us.

Special Visitors

The Week before Christmas my parents came out to visit and see the property. It was nice to spend some time with them and show them our new home. We were blessed with amazing weather on Saturday so we took advantage of it and headed off for a day on the Oregon coast. Maddie and Seppi joined us and had a blast running on the beach. They even got their pictures taken with Santa at a local pet store in Manzanita.

We really enjoyed the time we got with my parents and hope they can visit again soon!

Enjoy some pics from their visit.

Looking at this picture, I would not guess that it is mid-December in Oregon

Reno hitting on my mom :-)

Reno again with Maggie inthe background

Not surprising, all the animals gravitate to mom.

Maddie is saying "HI!" Seppi is saying "let me in the front!"

Oswald's West Lookout

Oswald's West Lookout

Maddie and Wendy.

Happy dogs.

We had to show them some of Portland's famous food trucks.

Peace,
The Lucky 14

Merry Christmas,

We are wrapping up everybody’s first Christmas in Oregon and it was a nice one.

Christmas Eve we took the horses – Jake and Sam - and the pups Seppi, Maddie and Cody to the beach to spend the day riding. We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day with temperatures hovering in the mid 50’s. Not bad for December 24th in Oregon! If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Oregonians, it’s that even when it’s sunny, they are complaining that it will rain tomorrow. We are hoping not to get sucked into that mind set. We want to enjoy the sunny days here because when it is sunny, this place is gorgeous!

Here’s a few pics from the day at the beach.

For Christmas, we had a nice lazy day. It was cloudy and raining off and on a little bit. First thing we did was get down to business… and open presents. The dogs got some new toys and treats, same with the kittens. The horses and donkeys all got treated with peppermint candy canes – one of their favorite treats! After a big breakfast, we went to see “We Bought A Zoo.” Vince felt he could relate. Here are a few pictures from Christmas.
Notice the 12 little stockings, and 2 human ones.

Seppi didn't seem to care that this was one of the human stockings.

They liked their blanket... and were checking out the Hawaiian cookbook.

The dog scramble to open presents.

Yup... another picture just like the one from last Christmas.

New frisbee! And Meg has the stuffed armadillo.

Play time.

Sam feeling super energetic for Christmas.

Posing for the camera.

For dinner we had one of Wendy’s family traditions of oyster stew.

The dogs after Christmas dinner. A tired pup is a good pup!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is ready for a great New Year.

We will now attempt to update this blog regularly with stories and pictures throughout the year. We hope you enjoy!
Peace,
The Lucky 14