to Bend or Bust...Oregon that is

As luck (or God's plan as we know it to be) would have it our trip to Bend, Oregon almost ended up in a bust...

This was going to be our first real vacation that we have taken since the birth of our daughter, Ella (who is now 2 1/2). The Dresdow's (x's seven) and The Garate's (x's five) had invited us along to Sunriver, Oregon months and months ago. We, The Mantle's however, just decided less than a month ago to actually take them up on there offer...kind of the nature of owning a catering business; you never really know until the very last minute whether or not trips are indeed possible.

Since we were going to be up there a couple days less than the other family's we decided that to get the most out of the trip we would have to fly up there. This would cut our travel time down from an 8 hour trip down to a 4 hour one...so we thought (more on that later). Ofcourse "I" thought that in order to get the most out of our day that we should take the second earliest flight as possible (we aren't crazy enought to take the first one out.) That put us on the 9:19am flight...out of SFO. That is the point where "I" should have taken a second look at the history of our family's ability to get to airports on time (which Bay Area culture suggests is two hours ahead of time if flying out of SFO.) But unfortunately for our family we have never flown out of SFO so we had NO IDEA about that culture or what layed ahead for that matter. I also didn't take into account that Ethan had an event the night before so we wouldn't get to bed until after midnight. But who cares, we thought, we will just rest when we get there...

So our alarm went off at 6:15 and we were out of the house by 7:19 (yes, I know). We arrived at SFO at 8:06. Oh wait a second...nope we technically hadn't arrived yet. We need to park. Oh, o.k., I see the sign honey for parking...oh shoot that's not for long term. Oop's lets turn around...oh there is no short turn around so we get placed back on the fwy, have to exit, get back on and then take the airport exit "again" hoping not to miss the long term parking sign "again." Oh...o.k. we see it and thankfully this time make the merge. We're driving and driving and driving...ahhh and driving (where is long term parking?!!!???). Shouldn't someone have told us that long term parking was almost an hour away from the actually airport? We ended up getting the last parking spot on the roof of the lot (level 7). It is now 8:20 as we board the shuttle bus...which should give us enough time to make our flight.

NOPE...it was not enough time. Apparently there is a 45 minute cut off point and we went passed that by about 10 minutes. Our options were at this point to be placed on standby for the 3:00pm flight (with a 2 1/2 year old...yeah right) or drive. We opted to drive. We then decided that we could just drive up and then fly back...so we rented a peppy RAV 4.

Although we didn't get to Sunriver until 10:30ish that evening (because we had to drive past it to pick up our luggage in Redmond) the drive was pretty smooth sailing. With only a couple minor hiccups of Ella getting ticked off because she has never been in a car for such a long period of time...we genuinely believe that God's purpose for this diversion was to get us to slow down a bit. Because we drove we were able to really to take in some of the most beautiful serene scenaries. We spotted ton's of horses, goats, sheep and what looked like heritage cows (cow's raised sustainably on green grass and hay without injections of antibotics.)

"Heritage animals were bred over time to develop traits that made them particularly well-adapted to local environmental conditions. Breeds used in industrial agriculture are bred to produce lots of milk or eggs, gain weight quickly, or yield particular types of meat within confined facilities. Heritage breeds are generally better adapted to withstand disease and survive in harsh environmental conditions, and their bodies can be better suited to living on pasture." Click on the link below for more information about sustainable farming and different types of heritage cattle.

http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/heritage/

P.S.

This is/was my very first post on a blog site so clearly there is room for improvement...I know. Sara just called me hysterically laughing because I put a picture of a cow on my first blog page and not my adorable daughter. I do apologize for this and I am thankful to know people like Sara Garate who can set people like me straight.

O.K., now on to my adorable daughter...

Canoeing on Sunriver...or so we thought...

Ella gets geared up and ready for her very first canoe ride. Really she is happy about it...sort of...

I think she will get over having to wear this lifevest if we continually point out that all the other kids have to wear them as well.

Parker and Kellan Dresdow and Ella anxiously await to canoe down the river.

...WAIT FOR IT...WAIT FOR IT; ahhh sorry kids, no ride for you today.

Apparently we didn't realize that this was a "2 hour tour" and Katie, Sara and I were scheduled for spa treatments in an hour and a half...so everyone had to take off their vests and try this again tomorrow :)

--This was Ella's look of "are you serious this canoeing thing is not happening?...so why do I still have this thing on?"

Our "Actual" canoe trip down Sunriver...