8 Months Away!

We have approached 8 months until the big day! The weekend of October 22nd Mark came over to Bend for a visit. Craig, Mark, and I went out and enjoyed the fantastic Central Oregon weather. That Saturday we visited the Bendistillery which is just west of Tumalo. We went in and had a seat at the bar where we had a direct view of the three sisters. It was beautiful! After that we went to Tumalo Mountain where we ascended the mountain in record time with crystal clear views of the surrounding towns and mountain ranges. We also captured some fun photos that I've posted below.

From left to right - South Sister, Middle Sister, Broken Top

Sunday we went on a bike ride around the Phil's Trail area. Mark and Craig had a great ride, while I was off my game that day. I nearly fell quite a few times, I scraped my legs on my pedals twice, once on my Achilles tendon! OUCH. And in the midst of all of this Craig wanted to try a new trail. Ok.... normally no big deal, but this one led us on some fun curves and many places where we had to stop and walk our bikes up or down the hills because the degree of incline and amount of rocks! I would venture to say we walked on this portion of the trail more than we rode our bikes. When we arrived on a junction to the trail there were signs designating the trail as "MOST DIFFICULT". It was pretty apparent that this trail was more difficult than the others but I find it a success that I ended the day without any broken bones or blood. Either way it was pretty difficult. It's safe to say we will need to improve drastically before we attempt that trail again.

After visiting some of Craig's works friends that Friday night we came home to notice one of our pumpkins was stolen from our front porch!!! :( And if that wasn't bad enough it was the largest pumpkin, which completed our pumpkin family. Ugggg I was so upset when I noticed that. I mean, seriously, was that necessary to take our awesome pumpkin?!?!?

I am nearly done with the volleyball season. It was not quite the season we all had planned for, but we grew so much as a team and the girls learned a lot. I am hoping that it is a transitional year for the girls and a program as a whole. Now I have a year under my belt and next year will be better for sure. Well, for now that is all the newest events that have taken place in our lives.

All our love,
Melinda and Craig

We've set a date!!

So our posts have been far and few between. However, in the meantime I have finished school and Craig is near compleating his first year at Bend Research. He loves his job and gets to play Ultimate Frisbee almost every day at lunch with his co-workers. This spring Craig played on his work slow-pitch softball team. A couple games into the season he became the team's designated pitcher!

Now that I have been over in Bend for just over a month we have found  a place that we are going to get married. It is a little place outside Bend in the City of Tumalo. The location is called Rock Springs Ranch. You can click on the link to the left or the one below to visit the website of the location. We absolutely love the place. The cool thing about this location is there are 31 rooms available in a total of 7 cabins which will allow us to stay at the location and be close to our friends and family that attend the wedding.
www.rockspringsweddings.com


We will be getting married JUNE 23, 2012!!!!

Lastly, Craig and I just returned from our first camping trip of 2011. We went searching along the Metolius River just west of Bend/Sisters. But by time we got there all the camp sites were full except for one that had a glorious view of the outhouse. We decided to move on to other options. We found some sites at a place called Big Lake at Hoodoo. But once we stepped out of the car I was bit by about 5 mosquitoes in about 1 minute and so Craig and I decided to check somewhere else with less mosquitoes. After two hours of driving we finally found the place we were going to be staying. We stayed at Lost Lake camp ground. We had a beautiful view of the lake and sunrise both mornings. Mosquitoes didn't infiltrate the area as bad as at Big Lake, but I still got eaten alive with bug bites all over my body. Nevertheless we still had a great trip and outing. Saturday we went to the McKenzie River Trail Head and hiked over 7 miles around Clear Lake. We were completely exhausted after that trip but it was so BEAUTIFUL and the lake definitely hold true to its name and is the clearest lake Craig and I have ever seen in our lives. We've posted a few pictures into an online album which you can access by clicking album link below.

July 25, 2011

We hope everyone is having a great summer and we will update everyone soon with the rest of the things we have planned for this summer. I will be running my second half marathon of the summer August 7th, we will be going Antelope hunting with Mark the middle of August and just after that Craig and I will be running a 5K (~3.1 miles). We are excited to have a great remainder of the summer!!

Love, 

Melinda & Craig