Lake with the Carricks

At the end of September Julie and I were invited to go to the Prineville Reservoir with the Carricks and Ryan. All we did was wake skate the whole day. I do not even think the wakeboards touched the water that day. It was a really fun day in the sun.

Julie wake skating

Emily Carrick with no rope.....

Us with Ryan - the lake was almost as smooth as glass, see behind us.

The men - Me, Mike Carrick and Ryan

Roni and Emily Carrick in the middle

Tam McArthur Rim

In early September we took a short hike of about 7 miles with two good friends - Mindy and Lori. It was a great day with sun and a bit of rain.

The boys and the girls. Julie, Lori and Mindy


Mindy with Tam McArthur Rim in the background.

On the top of the Rim looking over Three Creeks with a Rainbow.

The boys playing in the snow.

Almost forgot to post

I cannot forget this to post his Hike. Mike, Lisa, Julie and I went on a hike a couple of weeks ago up in the Cascades. The trail was called Obsidian Trail, there was a lot of obsidian on that trail. There was a meadow full of it, it looked like glass shimmering in the sun. Also on the trail there were a couple of springs coming out from the ground, it was cold and tasted good. We passed a couple of PCT hikers coming through Oregon on their way to Canada. It is amazing these people hike all the way from Mexico to here and keep going to Canada.

The Group

Our Trail with the boys in front.

2nd Annual Elk Lake Camp Trip

Just this past weekend a group of us went up to Elk Lake for our annual camp trip. There were 12 people this year that went. Several of us went on a 9 mile hike on the 6 lake trail. It was amazing how beautiful these lakes were. Every night we cooked our meals over the fire. The crazy part about the trip was that I think we knew everybody that camped around us at the other camp sites.

Campsite.

Julie, Matt and I cooking it up.

Colby eating corn and Clark wondering if he is going to get any.

Julie on a rock in the middle of Lucky Lake

Us at Lucky Lake

Elk Lake with South Sister in the background

Cody and Chris's Wedding at the Ranch

Just a couple of weeks ago Wayne and Karen's daughter Cody got married to Chris. Julie and I helped out getting the place ready for the wedding. My Mom and Dad came to the wedding. My mom helped make the invitation for them. The wedding was a good time - Julie and I saw a lot of people that we have not seen in a long time and the best part to be able to country swing dance.

Wayne walking Cody down the aisle with us in the background

The Men.............

Lake Shasta with friends

Brittany, a good friend of ours, has a family cabin at Lake Shasta (five hours away) that we got to go to for a long weekend. There were 8 of us - Brittany, Paul, Tom, Hannah, Matt, Heidi and us. Her family keeps a couple of jet skies at the lake so we got to ride them around a part of the lake until one stopped working. Matt and I got this brainy idea that we could fix it with the limited amount of tools that I keep in my truck and we failed. But we had a swimming dock to hang out at and swim. It was a lot of fun hanging with our friends.

Brittany and Paul.

Matt and the jet ski battery............

Julie and I COOKING UP SOME GOOD FOOD

Horse Clinic with Steve

Every year Julie takes a couple of Horse Clinics at our friends' ranch that Steve Rother comes to do. http://www.horseteacher.com/ Every time Julie goes she get so much better at horsemanship and as a rider. She does awesome......
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Julie doing rounds in the Arena

Wayne working with Steve's horse on sitting. It is amazing that you can teach a horse to sit.

Colorado Reunion

In July we went to Estes Park Colorado for Julie's family reunion on her dad's side. We rented a Class C RV to do the trip in, it was a lot of fun but the fuel mileage was not the greatest. While we where there we went down to Golden to take the Coors Factory tour. It was cool to see how the beer was made and all the history of it. The best part of the tour was the free beer at the end, ICE COLD COORS LIGHT. It was amazing................ Before we left for the trip Mike's girlfriend Janna came back from Afghanistan. She is there on a missions trip for a year. So she came back to surprise Mike and to go with us.
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Tubs of BEEEERRR!!!

The Beginning of Summer / Fresno Trip

Julie and I went down to Fresno to start the summer off with Paul and Daniel Graduating from Fresno State. It was a great trip to see everybody and to be with the Fam.

The YACS in black are back

Solfball season has begun!!!! This is the teams 7th season playing together. It is a coed team that is made up of all of are friends. Some faces have come and gone over the years but we still have the core group that plays every year. This picture is at are first game of the year. The temp I think is around the low 40's, it was a bit cold at first but we got use to it as the night went on. We won the game 9 to 7!!!! It was a great time getting back to the swing of things.

A long time coming

Well, it has been over two months since I have even looked at our blog. I gave the Vigers a bad time about not doing theirs for so long and then I do the same thing. Since the last time I did anything to the blog, a lot has happened. Julie threw me a 30th birthday party - I think we had about forty people or so at the house. All I know is that we had no leftovers and Julie cooked for an army that night. It was a great time. Pete, Kristin and Piper came up from Sacramento for the party and to have some Central Oregon fun. My Dad also came up from Fresno. We had a great time hanging out and getting to know Piper in between the hospital visits. Pete and I skied a couple days - one day we had some fresh, deep powder and the next we had spring snow conditions.

Last week my mom and I went up to Seattle to see some family that we have not seen in a long time. We saw Aunt Rita, her son Tom, his girlfriend Debbie and her daughter Ann and her husband Rob. We had a great time - I think we ate every type of international food. We had German, Dutch, Italian, Russian, and I think Mexican food. It was a fun seeing the sites with them and just hanging out.













Pete and I skiing on a BIG POWDER DAY

Lil Piper

My birthday cake. Julie and Emily made them - they are penguin cupcakes!

Not sure what they are showing but I thought it was funny. These are some of are good friends (top left to right: Lindsey and Brian Crosby, Aaron and Ryan)

Watch out for the flying fish!!!

I can not find all the birthday party pictures. I will look harder and post them when I find them.

Sugarbeet Fun.....

So, here it is. I made this video from pics and video from the Sugarbeet Harvest Matt and I went to Minnesota to help with. Randy what do you think?

Christmas 2008

Well, you all might have been wondering where our Christmas post was. You can say that I slept through it. I worked a ton of hours leading up to Christmas and then after. We gotten some 50+ inches in a couple of days of each other. So Christmas day was a day of long naps and time with the family. Julie and I spent it with Jim, Sandy, Mike and Janna, Mike's girlfriend. We had ham and all the fixins. It was a fun time hanging with them and opening the gift that they got us.

This year Julie and I are hosting a small group from our church. It is a diverse group of people, married couples, single girls and old people. Haha..... We had a white elephant gift party. The theme was anything that you had that you do not want anymore. It was quite interesting to see what people brought to the party. I gave my white elephant gift I got last year, a belt buckle and a trucker hat. Julie gave lotions that she did not want anymore. Did I tell you that they were half used? It was fun, they are good group of people!

Merry Christmas!!!

The Boys with the Christmas tree.

Christmas Tree Hunt

At the beginning of December I told Julie that we were just going to buy a Christmas tree and not go out and cut one down. Little did I know that she would get what she wanted and that was a tree from the forest. Our small group planned a Christmas tree hunt one Saturday. As you can see we have not gotten any snow yet. Usually we have a couple of feet of snow and it is a little hard to find a tree. I get impatient when that happens and I just find the closest tree to what we want and cut it. This year we had a great time with our friends though. I think we drove 10+ miles into an old burn area up to the tree line. There are rules when you cut trees, they have to be at least 300 ft from a river, have another tree within 30 ft from another tree and so on. To tell you the truth, we broke most of the rules. But it was for a good reason. :-) Merry Christmas every one...

Finally Sugar Beets Picture

Ya, I know. There are a lot of sugarbeets.

A big sugarbeet and Matt with a dirty little beet

Snow making machine......

Well Winter is here.... I have only worked one day at the mountain so far. What I am doing now is making snow so we can open on the 28th of November or possibly sooner if these storms coming produce snow.

This photo shows a 2009 BR 35o next to the first groomer Mt Bachelor had on the hill back 50 years ago this year. I will not be using this groomer but one just a couple of years older.

Well here we go...... I (Nathan) am making this blog so that we can share our lives just as our family is with their blogs. This blog may take some time to evolve and to be more exciting as time goes on. I decided to blog instead of facebook because it is a better way for the people like me without facebook to see what friends and family are up to.

The Bend Vandersluis family is made up of my wife Julie and are two amazing dogs -  Colby Jack and Clark. Julie and I have been married for 2 1/2yrs, but been together for 5yrs. Colby is 5 and Clark just turned 1. I am, as some may know, 29.

As you may know I have been laid off of my job since June. So I have just been working for some friends and family when they need it. My friend Matt and I just got back from Minnesota - we were helping with the sugarbeet harvest. It was a great time - hanging with my cousins and working when we could. But now I am just waiting for the snow to fly so I can starting working at the mountain. I have a job as a groomer at night, midnight to eight in the morning, it should be a good time and I will have for sure have some good stories......