Tricia told me about the family reunion that was going to happen at Aunt Thera & Uncle Dave's place in Bend, Oregon. Google maps told us that it was a good 12 hours away. I really wanted to go, but was groaning inside.
 
I did my math... 550 miles + 2.5 year old girl + 6 month old boy + little Prius != one day of driving

Unless... unless you have kids like ours. These kids are bloody resilient. Heck yeah. We headed off at 5:30am and after 3 stops we got to our hotel in Bend at 3:30pm.

Tricia's dad was already at Uncle Dave's place so we quickly showered and got to the clubhouse in the community they live in, in Awbrey Glenn. We mingled, spoke to people and just got to know everyone. Well, I was meeting many people for the first time. Buit, that was when I realized that they had a dress code. White shirts and blue shorts/pants. Tricia, her dad, Arjun, Eve and I were totally standing out. I thought the dress code was kinda cute. I don't own a white shirt nor do I own blue shorts or pants, so I had nuttin.

After dinner Uncle Dave pulled out the karaoke machine. Wait... what?
Karaoke in 2008? I think the 90's are calling and they want the Karaoke machine back. Anyway, sometime ask me about Karaoke in Australia. Completely mad Asian dudes. Back to the present day... Eve saw the machine and the mike and promptly ran over there and danced, sang and basically did her "look at me" routine. Pretty funny.

This was the first time Tricia's dad, Clint had seen Arjun. And Arjun was so happy to see him, drool on him and grab at his honker. They had a grand 'ol time together. It's too bad he lives so close and yet so far away like Tricia's mom in Albany, Oregon.

Eve loved hanging out with Melissa. They played constantly. Melissa is all of 5 years old but acted like her much older sister and would carry her around. The danced, ran, sang and swam together. Of course I really enjoyed speaking to Chuck, Krista, Matt and Dawn. I had just met them the one time about 3 years back and spending 3 days with them was really nice. We hope to head up to Portland over Thanksgiving. I don't want to take any time off work, so we will probably drive up the weekend before, spend the week there and drive back the weekend after. I will work during the day and spend time with friends and family in the evening. We are looking forward to seeing the Griders, Gokhan/Stephanie, Serhat/Sarka, Ken/Ingrida, Niranjan/Shilpa and some of our other friends from Portland

On Sunday, we went to Red Robin for lunch. Yup, Red Robin. That is my usual place for lunch during a work day, so not really a place I would go during a holiday, but I'm usually good to go with the flow. I spoke to Matt later and he too said we should have headed to a little brew pub a mile up the street instead of here, but hey, Red Robin isn't the place I would have chosen, but they are consistent with what they do and they have great fries.

The next, Labor day, Uncle Dave and Aunt Thera had all of us over for lunch. We hung out with everyone and got to know them some more. It was a really nice day and there was a little landscaped stream that Eve and Melissa loved.

We had a really good time and will certainly go back next year. Our thanks to Aunt Thera/Uncle Dave/Aunt Judy/Uncle Butch for the entire weekend for fun.

Labels: Bend, family reunion, Grider, Oregon, Sturdevant