Why Sunriver with Travie and Stephie Is Never Boring

We started our Sunriver vacation tradition with the Whites in 1999 and have returned every year except one. The year we skipped I was 9 months pregnant with Mikayla and couldn't justify the trip. It is something we treasure, anticipate, and lengthen every year. The Whites, Schillings and us all even have an automatic monthly withdrawal set-up to fund this special event. We eat all of our favorite meals and treats, savor the hot tub, get and decorate a Christmas tree, exchange presents, and play a lot of PS2. It's guaranteed to be a good time.

However, it's not always a guarantee that there won't be something that goes a little wrong. Snow can be a nail-biter: will it come on time? will it rain? will there be any at all? Checking the long-term forecast prior to departure can seriously make or break my mood for the day. There's also the incidents that Travis finds himself a part of. In the year 2000, John and him decided to rent snowmobiles. They were having a wonderful time, exceeding 70 miles an hour in powder snow - then while climbing a hill (at a considerably lower speed), Travis' snowmobile hit a rock - and had to be towed out - costing them $1100. (Right before their wedding - nice timing for that expense....) There hasn't been anything significant that's occurred for a while, but yesterday changed all that. Here's a few pictures to share the story-

This is on the way to get a Christmas tree for our home away from home- Travis recognized his truck was sliding into the ditch and literally tried for a football field length to correct it out of the ditch. Clearly it didn't work. Good thing for ONSTAR. They had a tow truck to our exact location within 2 hours.


This would be the kids, unhappy while waiting-


This is the tow truck, doing its magic - and then Steph showing her expression of victory, note the sun setting in the backgroung - still no tree.



So, after that (by the way, no damage done and the towing was free with their ONSTAR service), the adventure was able to continue and we had five minutes to find our tree before dusk. We picked out a doozy - about 20 feet tall - we decorated it while it was laying horizontal. Too fun....

Here's a picture of the tree-


Opening presents and one of my favorite presents-



Finally, this shows that even the dogs got along and shared appropriately - good for them!