Born To Be Wild!

( Matt & I with our new friends Danielle and Alan)

A couple of weeks ago I got to accompany Matt to Bend. He was attending a conference there. For three whole days.  I had asked Matt why he was so interested in my coming with him. He was going to be doing business stuff after all and I didn't have much interest in exploring Bend all on my own. His response was that he needed me to be his arm candy at the dinners. So arm candy I was. It's a good enough excuse for me to hang out in Bend with my hubby for the weekend :) I had the mornings to myself. I slept in, ate a free hot breakfast in the hotel dining room every morning, got caught up reading blogs and did my best to get through Les Miserables...which I am officially done reading now. It took forever! Matt and I would meet up around 1:00 or so and spend the rest of the day together. At night there were nice dinners we went to with Matt's business peeps and their spouses. While we had our free time we went on some beautiful hikes and one day drove into Redmond and explored the antique shops. It was a charming little town! And they had a candy shop where they sold handmade chocolates. We learned that back in the day Redmond was very abundant with potato crops, so many things were made from potato, even candy. And the potato candy was HEAVENLY. I must find a recipe on-line somewhere. Grammy and Papa Gold took the kids so Matt and I could have a little breather. It's so good for our marriage when we can get a way and just focus on each other. And we have the best time together! The last night in Bend there was a 70's themed dinner/dance. Matt had forgotten to tell me that it had a theme and that there were going to be awards given out for best costume, etc. He had packed 70's inspired clothing for himself. So, I made him take me shopping. You can't go to a themed 70's dinner in 2010 street clothes and get your groove on! Walmart was very nice to us and we ended up finding me the perfect 70's dress, hat, earrings and fake eyelashes tipped with silver. Very groovy. And Matt found himself the cool blue sunglasses. So, can you guess what we are going to be for Halloween this year?

I've decided that Matt and I were born about 15-20 years to late. We should have been in our prime in the 70's! We ended up winning several awards. It was hilarious! Here's what we won...all by applause.

Couples Costume Contest~ 1st Place. We scored a 50.00 gift certificate to McCormick & Schmicks!
Couples Disco Dance Off~ 2nd Place. We got the new Prince Of Persia DVD.
Hula Hoop Contest~ Only I entered this and I surprised myself by winning 2nd place. Who knew that I could still hula hoop like I did when I was a young girl? Anyhow, I won a bottle of supposed non alcoholic sparkling cider. But when we got it home Rylie and I took a drink and it didn't taste like any sparkling cider we had ever tasted, so we dumped it down the drain.

 Last weekend we decided to use our 50.00 dinner certificate and take the kids on a date downtown. We don't take the kids to fancier restaurants very often at all, so this was a big treat. We decided to dress up a little bit to make the night feel extra special. I wore my dark gray corduroy's. Matt says they still fall into the jeans category. I think he's totally up in the night. Any opinions on that subject? We were seated by a window where we had a nice view of the river. We taught the kids how to put the linen napkins on their laps. We decided to be really nice and let Rylie order off of the adult menu. It was a fantastic night. After dinner we walked along the waterfront and just enjoyed each others company. It was a perfect night with no rain or wind. We walked along the dock area and looked at all the million dollar yachts and dreamed. We thought the dock would wrap around back to the boardwalk, but instead it dead ended at this "Sophia" bench. And of course we had to get a picture!