I am in love with Oregon

Seriously. Specifically of the Medford variety. That is where Cristian and I went last month for the Riding Family Reunion. Hosted by my sister Cyndi, it was perfect. Fabulous weather, fun events/activities, and good company. I love my family. I already mentioned the talent show, but here are a few of the other activities we did:


Hung out at Cyndi's beautiful house. This is Cristian reading books to some cute boys. He was totally the favorite uncle.


This is what I like to call the "Ghana Grab." It is where my mom brings out her suitcase full of Ghanian gifts and we all figure out what we want for ourselves. It gets pretty rough. I think I gave my niece Jen a black eye over a hand bag. Just kidding. We went to Crater Lake, a GORGEOUS natural lake up in the mountains of Oregon. It used to be a volcano, and long story short, is now a crater with water in it.
The fam at Crater Lake. There are kind of a lot of us now.

This is Katherine. I should mention she is the last in a long line of beautiful children created by my brother Gary and his wife Melissa. I also mention this because Melissa credited her still being alive to Cristian's multiple times of steering her away from the pool. And yes, that is also her at the top of my entry with her brother Matt and the essential Children-stuffing-their-face-full-of-watermelon picture.
Of course any gathering is not complete without Sister Riding's scones!














We also visited a little park with a big model train to ride. we all indulged our inner child and rode the train, including Grandpa and Cristian.














On Monday we set out for the Treesort, a bed-and-breakfast where all the rooms were treehouses. It was so fun! Ours was the Cavaltree, You can't see it very well behind the trees on the right. But it was a tent with a bed that we used and then another treehouse above it that some of the older boys slept in.
For more information on this place you can go to www.treehouses.com
We also hit the California Coast and the Redwood Forest. It was awesome and made me not want to go home to Las Vegas even more. The weather at the beach was perfect.














This is Cyndi and Melissa, and my nephew Ethan, and of course cute Kate.

My Dad took this picture, since Cristian and I have hardly any pics together. What can I say, one of us always has the camera.

It was an amazing trip, I really did not want to come home. Only because Vegas is barren desert compared to Oregon. Compared to anywhere, really. Yea for family vacations. Cristian and I are on our own next summer since my parents won't be coming back from Ghana until November 2009. Maybe we will have our first official Bell Family Vacation and go backpacking in Bryce Canyon.