summer road trip

so we took a fun little road trip last week. limited planning went into it, and we knew only that we would head for the John Day Fossil Beds Nat'l Monument in central oregon. so we packed up our camping gear and it the road with no real itinerary in hand (all part of the adventure todd says). i gotta say we had a great trip and saw some interesting things.

first we started off in the town of fossil, or. where up behind the high school you can dig for fossils. it was entirely plant matter (leaves and such) but the kids really had fun digging rock and then chiseling it apart for the fossils.

then we went hiking through the actual national monuments where they had examples of fossils found in years past....

we found little spots to camp each night...

we also went through an area call the 'painted hills' which were so stunning. i have seen the painted hills in lots of oregon scenic calendars, but had never been to the area. my pictures don't do it justice but you can get a sense.

lastly we ended up in a native american reservation/resort called kahneeta. the kids had been so good tromping through national parks we thought it'd be fun to reward them. so we stayed in teepee and then played all day at the pool which had big water slides.

on the drive home we had two very tired kids.....

it was a fun little summer get away and made me want to explore more of oregon next summer!

happy 40th birthday todd!

so todd's 40th birthday was on Aug 2nd, but the party lasted all. week. long.

we had good friends over for pizza and cake on his actual birthday.

also to 'help' partake in todd's birthday present which was a new kegerator!

i got an old vintage fridge, painted it and then enlisted the help of our good friend josh (who is a brewer at full sail and knows all things beer) to convert it into a kegerator. (mostly i watched as he generously did the work). needless to say todd loves his new friend who lives in the garage. we named him phil (he was an old Philco fridge...so seemed appropriate). already he gets blamed for things like...'aaahh, that's just phil talking'.

then the following weekend we had a big backyard bash....lots of friends, lots of beer, lots of fun. we didn't take any pictures except for this one of the late night crew.

it was a great celebration of a milestone birthday......happy birthday todd!