Donaldson Crew Adventures

My good friend mark has been doing a high school boys Bible study since the start of the school year. He wanted to get all the boys out plus a couple of additional boys that will be starting high school next year (our Noah for example). We have been planning it for about a month.  In total we had 18 people. 12 boys and 6 adults. 

Mark and I would run gear rafts and our friend Justin who works for CRU at the college would run a raft full of kids and the older boys would run in a smaller raft on their own. (Jack and hunter both have familiarity running this one). 

Mark and Justin ran the programming for the weekend and I was camp cook!

We were a bit worried about the weather as it had just been snowing a little over a week earlier but we were blessed with good weather. Cool at night but nice spring days during the day.  

We did a 3 day run on the lower Deschutes leaving Friday and coming back Sunday. Boys had an absolute blast and it was amazing to see them bond as brothers in Christ.

Dads also had a great time hanging out and bonding with the boys as well. Food was great and always enjoyable to share meals together. Food pics- night 1 - big pot of chilli and second photo is a peach cobbler I did.  

We have been rafting as a family the last couple of years on borrowed equipment. This year we invested in our  own equipment. It’s hard to find something that everyone enjoys together and this is one of those things. With that you need a way to transport the raft so I set about building a removable platform for our trailer to carry the raft inflated. 

April 14.  Mid April snow!  It has actually snowed 3 days this week already. 

More … April 16

Abbie and Preston practicing their skills at the shooting range with the .22. Watch out rabbits! 

We go camping on Paulina lake often in the summer. I have never been up in the winter. The resort on Paulina lake is actually open for a few months in the winter but you cannot drive in - hike or snowmobile only from a snow park that is a few miles down the road. 

Noah and I drove up Friday afternoon and hiked in staying at one of the small 2 person cabins for the night. 

On the way in we stopped and hiked down to Paulina falls. Again - a place we have visited in summer but not in winter.  Really pretty.

The weather has been unseasonably warm the last month. This weekend Hunter and I went to Crater lake to go winter camping. It was spring conditions. Hunter has been investing in backcountry skis and just got some climbing skins so we spent time practicing. 

We then headed up and found a camp that allowed us to watch the sunset. While warm in the day it was still getting down to about 21 overnight. 

Sunday after getting back to the car we drove up to the crater rim by the hotel (only part of the road open in winter).  It was amazing to see the lake with snow. 

What a fun week we had with the MacDermotts. Erin and the girls came to visit along with Lulu. It was a week of non stop action and fun. The girls got to do many firsts. They went sledding and skiing and loved every minute of it. The girls had perfect blue bird days skiing. We couldn’t have asked for better weather for learning how to ski. We can’t wait for our next visit together. 🛷 ⛷ ⛸ ❤️

Dinner part with friends:

Virtual reality outing with the kids:

Enjoying the lead up to Christmas.  Time at home, Coffee shops, Christmas Eve service and Christmas Eve dinner at Noi Thai.

Christmas Day