Just popping in to say hi y’all. We just got back from a mini family vacation to the Sunriver Resort in Sunriver, OR (or 15 minutes from Bend, OR) and wanted to shout from the rooftops about how amazing this place was.

We had a few friends mention it in conversation as we were looking into ski resorts last winter but heard it’s best in the summer. And boy were they right!!

Sunriver resort is made up of a bunch of homes and condos which are available to rent. The resort has “four championship golf courses, a world class spa, skiing at nearby Mt. Bachelor, horseback riding, paddle boarding, canoeing, white water rafting, 40 miles of biking trails and the list just goes on” (per the Sunriver resort site).

The home we found that suited us and our budget was a 3 bedroom home with 2 bathrooms including a bunkbed room which the kids loved. It had a sufficient kitchen, laundry room, hot tub and adult bikes to use. We searched VRBO.com but ended up booking on Vacasa.com because the rates were better.

The resort area reminded me of going to a resort in the Caribbean as it had everything you needed right there. If we hadn’t wanted to leave the resort to check out Bend like we planned, we could have spent our entire vacation there. There were restaurants, coffee shops, ice cream stores, shopping, etc all at our disposal. One of our favorites was the Sunriver Brewing Company which comes to no surprise to anyone that knows us that we found a brewery. But it had great beer, food and even a kids play area. And the best part was their ability to text us when our table was ready so we could walk around the shops versus waiting in the lobby.

We booked the trip Sunday to Wednesday so it was a tad less busy. We brought our kids’ bikes as well so they were able to ride around the circle by our rental house. I think they did this 3 or 4 times a day just to get some energy out and not sit still too long.

On Sunday night after arriving, we hit the hot tub and then the Sunriver Brewing Company. Think I got their pad thai salad with salmon as recommended by our server and it was pretty good.

On Monday, our first full day there, we road our bikes to the cafe for breakfast and had a wonderful time as my son Jaxon even rode his balance bike the 2-mile round trip. It was his furthest ride yet! Kids loved the pancakes and yogurt with fruit at this cafe which counts as a success in our books. From there, we went to the pool which our rental home provided 8 Sunriver Homeowners Aquatics & Recreation Center (SHARC) free passes for it’s guests. The pool was wonderful. It had 2 slides though Olivia was just barely tall enough for one, a lazy river, a splash pad and a few fun pool areas. I would say it’s mostly directed towards children but we had fun because our kids were having fun. That is, until Jaxon got water in his ears and almost immediately had an ear infection from it (the joy of ear tubes). The rest of this day was mostly spent trying to ease Jax’s ear ache and trying for naps which was not a smooth process. We had hoped to make it to Bend, OR for dinner as there were a bunch of breweries I had my eye on; but with Jax’s ear ache, we decided to just head into the resort area and found a pub to eat in.

Tuesday, our second full day, was altered a bit with Jax’s ear infection but we made the most of it. We started off with some hot tubbing, drove around a bit, found a playground, bought passes to the bouncy house area which the kids played in until the sun made the material too hot for them. The kids and I rode the little train around and then we headed to Bend, OR to try out at least one of their breweries. We chose Deschutes Brewery because it’d been on our radar for awhile. We enjoyed our beers, food and the kids’ enjoyed coloring. Liv and I popped into the Patagonia store for some matching hats and then to the marina in an attempt to rent a canoe for an hour or so. Our plans were slightly altered when we realized that we couldn’t just tool around in the marina with a canoe but had to put in the canoe and paddle for 6 miles before the takeout. Thankfully, Chris and I love this kind of thing and had a blast. The kids were great! We stopped a couple times to let the kids swim and even fed some ducks that were swimming up to us. After they ate all of our animal crackers, one duck even bit Olivia when it realized she was out of food. It was so funny (and she’s fine). We knew we’d pushed it today with doing a bit too much with the kids so we ran to the little grocery store at the resort area to pick up a frozen pizza so we could have a movie night in.

The following day, Wednesday, we had an 11:00am checkout but tried to have a bit of fun before leaving. We hit the hot tub and rode our bikes down to the cafe again. With the last hour or so we had before we had to leave, Chris and Olivia popped into the pool while I packed us up.

All in all, it was a wonderful family time. Moment like these are so precious to me with Chris’ work schedule, Olivia starting Kindergarten this week and just in general, time flying by. I appreciated the small moments with the kiddos and the conversations with Chris.

We are already discussing when we should go back so if any of y’all interested in a fun getaway, this is the place.

Thanks and happy back to school week!

~Mel

***As a side note, we did bring our pup too. It was easy enough with the drive, having a pet friendly rental as well as a big kennel to keep him in while we were away. Our sleep definitely suffered as he was wired at night from being mostly secluded during the day save for our quick potty walks, but it was worth it to all be together.