Thanksgiving In Bend

In case it hasn't been clear, we spent Thanksgiving in Bend, OR, and arrived home safe and sound a few hours ago. We didn't want to broadcast our absence too much, because you know that house-breakers spend their days reading obscure blogs to see who's out of town. We didn't want to invite them back to steal our hand-me-down chairs or Moomintroll books.

Now that we're home again, let us talk of Bend! We love Bend! How I lived forty-two years without knowing how great Bend is, I'll never know, because I feel very at home there. We went with a family of friends, so Darcy had a play mate and we could all take turns with child-wrangling. Thursday, we had a more or less traditional Thanksgiving meal with our friends from Crescent City and our friend Kathy who worked with us in Katmai and is now living in Bend. Michael and I got a date night on Friday and spent it in downtown Bend eating lovely Thai food, browsing used bookstores, and previewing a few stores for after Buy Nothing Day was over. We decided that buying our meal couldn't count -- it was date night!

Michael and our friends all skied on Saturday. Bend -- amazing Bend -- has a drop-off play center/day care, so for twenty bucks each, Darcy and H played in an indoor play ground for almost four hours. This was because two kids and a baby was more than I was willing to take on by myself. I know that many, many people do it all the time, but there is a reason Darcy is an only child. They had a great time, the skiers had a great time, and once two of the skiers came back, I got to wander downtown and do a little Christmas shopping at the local toy store and an Etsy collective store. Fun! 

Today, in order to wear out the small beasts for the drive back to Crescent City, we all started with a trip to Juniper Pool, the site of Darcy's summer stitches. Although it's much smaller, the indoor kids' pool was just as big a hit as the outdoor one was. We splashed around for over an hour, with a few adult trips to the hot tub and steam room (my first -- it was insane! I felt like a boiled lobster). And the ploy worked. Darcy stayed awake and apparently very hungry while we went back and cleaned out the last of the rental house and went to a fun pizza place that lets kids make their own pizza. It was very cute. They brought the stretched dough over to the table on a peel with bowls of sauce, cheese, and the kalamata olives Darcy requested for her topping. She put it all together and then we sat at the "pizza bar" so she could watch them put it into the wood-burning oven. 

Ten minutes into the drive home, she was sound asleep. So was I, for that matter. It turns out that three children, five and under, in one house leads to less-than-wonderful sleep for everyone. Darcy slept for half the ride home, which was perfect.

Now we're all gearing up for a totally insane week. Darcy is taking swim lessons two days a week for the next two weeks. Her first is tomorrow. Tomorrow night, Michael has a read through for Willy Wonka! Tuesday is Food Council for me in the evening. Thursday, we're going to do some sort of complicated switch-off with Darcy in Orick in order for Michael to teach a training there during the day and for me to be able to make an evening meeting of the Humboldt Food Policy Council. Whew! We'll be all tuckered out for the weekend just in time for a birthday party Saturday and a bead party on Sunday.

Life doesn't stop.