Brayden takes wood shop

Bray made this sweet carousel in wood shop.

Sister Day

The other weekend I was in town and was able to get together with Carleen to hang out.
We ended up walking around Tryon Creek and then going to Safari Sams and then ending our night watching the new Goosebumps movie. It was pretty fun.

Carleen taking a group selfie pic

Then Bray took some pictures of Carleen and I...
He was laughing so hard I don't think he got one shot that was in focus.
He kept rotating the camera around in circles...Silly KID.

And the one and only picture I took at Safari Sam's! The kids were up in the tubes...

Love hanging out with my sisters.

Bachelor ~ August's snowboarding debut

*It happened again! I uploaded and added narration to an entire post and it failed to SAVE. So this is me quickly redoing it with less detail and patience than before*

Mitchel and Brayden both started snowboarding around 4 years old. So August was way past due to be heading up to the mountain.

Brent had been talking about taking him up forever. Since we are so close to Mt. Bachelor and they have an awesome FREE kids lift there really is no excuse to not go. So this year when the boys had a Thursday and Friday off of school we decided to head up there.

It was dumping snow and very windy. 

I did not fit any of my rain/snow pants (thank you big pregnant belly) so I was only in leggings. I stood out there taking pictures of the boys with the snow blasting all around me. It was awesome.

I made them stop and take a group photo through the snow when we first arrived.

August's main objective when we got there, was to roll around and eat the snow. He did this while Brent got the other boys strapped into their bindings.

Bray ready to head down to the lift

Mitch and Bray headed off to the lift.

Mitch and Bray took off while Brent was still getting Aug ready to go.

Brent got Aug all strapped in and ready. I thought he would have him practice a little, but instead he headed straight for the lift. This made me kind of nervous...thinking/picturing how he would get off the lift on the other end! Still, he was totally enjoying himself.
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Not long after Brent and August took off on the lift I could start to make out Mitch and Bray headed down the hill.

Mitch said it was hard with all the fresh powder. He said the snow kept piling up on his board and making sinking divot-like road blocks.

Bray got stuck on this kind of plateaued area. He just didn't have enough speed and was trying to nudge his way out.

Finally Bray and Mitch started making their way down to the lift.

After awhile I spotted Brent and Aug at the top of the hill...

After Brent taught him the essential skill of getting back up on his feet, August started really getting the hang of it.

All of the guys ended back at the lift ready for another run down the mountain. After I saw them all get on the lifts I ran waddled to the car and tried to dry my frozen soaked legs with the cars heaters...

After I was mostly dried off I trekked back out onto the mountain to catch the guys coming down again...

First I saw Mitch.

Then shortly after came Brayden.

He leaned too far forward and bit it...but quickly got up and headed over to us.

Bray slid right into a fist bump with Mitch.

These two!

I sent Mitch and Bray to the car to warm up and undress from the winter wear...while I waited to catch Aug and Brent. I finally saw them making their way down.

At this point I could tell August was exhausted, but I completely understand that. I fall so much when I snowboard I definitely know how tiring it is to keep picking yourself up. He was more interested in licking the snow off of his gloves. He was still loving it though...

It was pretty painful to watch at the end. The snow was so fresh and thick the boards were just sinking and cutting into all the powder. Brent just tried to keep August going, but Aug was looking more and more like Gumby.
Brent asked him if he wanted to keep boarding over to me, but Aug opted to take off the board and just carry it over...still eating snow every chance he got.

 
We got all loaded up and headed to town for some grub.
Mitch loves hamburgers (the gourmet kind). Brent took us to a place in Bend that he heard had the "best" hamburgers around...

Of course Mitch saw there was a HUGE burger there and just had to order it. So Mitch, Bray, and Brent split the 18oz burger...
Needless to say we had a ton of leftovers. But it was worth it. The boys LOVED it.

 It was a great day up at the mountain and I know we will be going back up as soon as our schedules allow.