our quinal cousin vacay

my cousins are like brothers and sisters to me. we all grew up so close and never left each others' side. even for those who lived far...when they would visit it was like no time had passed. we did everything together and i wouldn't have wanted it any other way. i remember when we asked our parents if we could do a sleep over they sometimes said no and we would cry. some cried more than others but don't worry i won't mention any names here. heehee.

now that we're grown and have families of our own it's harder to find time to get together. we'll still hang out and even have a sleep over now then. but, it will never be like those summer days when all we did was goof around, watch music videos and play swap meet. yes that's right...we played swap meet. ha! i'm sure we drove grandma crazy but being the amazing lady she was you could never tell. grandpa on the other hand would get so fed up he'd take off to go fishing everyday. on occasion he was nice enough to take some of us with him. but, if you took too long he'd leave without you. one time it was either julius or jj who ran after the car, somehow jumped in and was practically hanging on for dear life. geez, there's so many funny and crazy memories i could go on forever.

anyhow, this vacation brought me back to when we were little. it seemed like we had all the time in the world to do nothing but hang out. it was so nice and relaxing. just what all of us needed. the first part of our vacation was spent in a house we rented in sunriver. there was a ton of eating, time in the hot tub, and vegging out watching bootleg movies.


we also managed to get off our lazy butts to do a couple of activities. one day we went on a hike (and when i say hike i mean more like a leisurely nature stroll). but, if you ask jerrylyn and lonnie they'd swear it was intense. they even had to stretch!





the next day we rented a rented a raft and floated down the river. we tried singing the pocahontas song "just around the river bend" but failed terribly.






i honestly don't know how we made it with all the sketchy paddling going on. but, we did and lived to tell about it!

the last couple of days was spent introducing them to portland. last thursday on alberta was probably the best way to show how weird this town really is and why we can't help but love it. friday we shopped and ate some more. we literally walked around town from 10 to 8 with our reward being ringside steakhouse in the end.

my cousins are some of my favorite people in the whole entire world. i seriously love them! hopefully for our next vacay we can get the rest of them to join.