Bend, OR--The Crocketts 10-18 and 10-19

I had a pediatric dental meeting last Friday in Bend, OR...so after a long day's work on Thursday, we loaded up and headed to our good friends Ben and Tiffany Crockett's home. :-) Maddy enjoyed some one-on-one time with Daddy while I was away on Friday...which included motorcycle shops, the local airport and more. :-) We got out and hiked on Sabbath to some beautiful waterfalls and Maddie had a great time chattering from her high-post on daddy's back...hiking for a bit by herself...and then napping after she wore herself out. :-)
A HUGE thank you to Ben and Tiffany...for letting us crash at their place during an already busy weekend for them....for sharing their local favorite restaurants with us...for letting us get our "dog-fix" with their adorable rottweiler named Sophie...and for all the other stuff that was in-between the already listed. :-) You guys are the best...hope we can get together sometime soon again...:-)

P.S.-The Great Dane in the one of the pics is actually Ben & Tiffany's neighbors' dog..not theirs. But...they were walking by and we couldn't get over the incredible size of the dog...so we decided to catch a quick photo of just how "great" he was. :)

West Coast Game Park--Walk-thru Safari 10-15

We finally took Maddie to our local "zoo"...which is actually a "walk-thru safari". We saw lots of different wild cats, bears, chimpanzees, zebras and more. The coolest parts of the park are: 1) Baby animals are brought out for petting every 45min or so...so we were able to pet a 6-week old baby cheetah (which is in a pic below), a baby siberian lynx, a baby ferret and a baby virginia opossum. I included a picture of the park's "super-old" virginia opossum (which a whole 2 years of age!)...and the poor thing's absolutely CROSS-EYED!! No wonder they get run over, huh? ("Hmmm...is that a car----?")
Anyway....the second fun thing about the park is that there are probably 75 or so animals that "tour" with you! They include goats of various shapes and sizes (a super tiny baby one REALLY attached itself to Maddie for awhile!), sheep, llamas, donkies, peacocks, deer, and rams. All the animals that can "tour" are very very friendly and gentle. Maddie had an absolute BLAST having so many animals around her!! She's VERY excited about animals right now...so we're glad we finally made it to the park while the weather is still nice. :-)

Portland Marathon 10-5-08

WE DID IT!!! Brent and I had been training throughout the summer for this....and although the weather was absolutely awful...we both reached our goals in the end! :-) The rains left us both completely drenched and freezing. I had run my 18 and 20 mile runs without any blisters or sore areas...but I had multiple blisters by mile 8 (in the weirdest places! Stupid rain!)...but we survived. Karen and Herman watched Maddie for us and they all cheered us on at mile 22. (I guess Maddie helped cheer on multiple runners by waving endlessly and shouting "WHOA!!" as they passed her by!)
I ended up finishing in 3hrs 54 min...and Brent finished in 5hrs 12 min. Other friends who ran the marathon as well were Liz Coulter (formally van den Hoven), Jay Gronemeyer and Matt Sinnott (Jay and Matt grew up here in Coquille as well...although they live elsewhere now).