restaurants

Michael and I had the chance to have some fun in the snow and sun this weekend! On Saturday, his mom and stepdad came over to babysit Logan and we drove up to Mount Hood to go snowshoeing WITHOUT a kid and WITHOUT a dog! It was so crazy! LOL It was crazy how easy it was to pack for just us. 😉

It was such a gorgeous day. It was clear blue skies and warm–almost 45 degrees up on the mountain. We drove to White River West Sno Park and arrived at about 10am. (When we left the parking lot that holds 200 cars was packed full.)

White River is a popular place for sledding and there were lots of kids out sledding. It looked super fun! The other nice thing about White River is the immediate view of Mount Hood:

It was such a nice day! And it was so nice being out there just the two of us, doing something we used to do before having Logan. Not that it’s not nice doing stuff with our dog and kid, but it’s also nice just doing stuff as a couple, too.

We hiked around a bit and then crossed over into the trees where we found some other trails.

Lots of people were out that day!

We ended up doing the Boy Scout Ridge Trail (or at least, part of it). We were the only ones on the trail, which was kind of nice! We followed the trail through the quiet trees, away from the sledders. The trail had been forged and then the snow had frozen a bit and there wasn’t new snow, so that was nice because we didn’t lose the trail.

We followed the trail for a bit and then felt like it was time to turn around. We didn’t have a ton of time and since it was about an hour to drive home and we wanted to stop for lunch, we had to get going. I definitely want to explore this trail some more, though!

I was feeling really good and felt like I could keep going, which is a bummer! But we were short on time, so had to head back to the car. It was such a gorgeous day to be outside on the mountain! And such a nice way to spend some time together.

I was surprised that I didn’t burn more calories. Especially being at a higher weight that I am currently at right now. Usually snowshoeing burns a pretty decent amount. But my heart rate just never really got that high.

We stopped at the Tollgate Restaurant for lunch on the way down. We had a beer.

And split some mozzarella “sticks”:

I had a side salad and the brussels sprouts (about 1/3 of them. I was stuffed by then). The food wasn’t anything special. I don’t know that I’d go back, honestly.

Then home to this cutie pie:

He didn’t want to take a nap until we got home, which actually worked out well because we got home and ALL took a nap!!! It was glorious! It was a nice, relaxing, lazy afternoon. Just what we all needed. We were super lazy the rest of the night and I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner, slathered my calves with this magnesium lotion to hopefully stave off soreness, and went to bed early!

Sunday I went swimming and sat in the hot tub and that felt fantastic! I think the magnesium lotion helped a lot, too, because I wasn’t sore!

On Saturday Michael went for a run, I went to the gym and then we headed south to Dundee. We had to pick up our last case of Sokol Blossor wine (I cancelled the membership) and decided to make a day of it.

The hope was that Logan would split his naps into two: it’s 45 minutes from our house so it would be perfect if he could take part of his nap there and back. We recently turned Logan’s carseat around and I had worries that he’d be able to sleep in the car but…

He was so stimulated by pointing out all the cars we saw on the road, he didn’t fall asleep until we were 15 minutes away. Of course!

First stop: lunch!

We went to Red Hills Market for lunch. It had great reviews online. And they were right! The food was excellent. The service? Mixed. You ordered at the counter and then found a table and the line was insane. It was a bit stressful standing in line with a toddler to order a meal but the food actually came out really quickly, so that was good.

Now the food: it was really good! I highly recommend this place. Michael got the steak salad and said it was excellent (I had a bite and agree. The chimichurri dressing was to die for.) I got the soup of the day and a side of egg salad on toast topped with arugula.

It was a small cup but the perfect amount. The butternut squash soup was really good, slightly sweet, and topped with toasted pumpkin seeds. I really liked my lunch. I would definitely go back here.

The next stop was picking up our order at Sokol Blosser and then heading to Heiser Farms for the pumpkin patch! Last year we went to the pumpkin patch in Hood River and it was great fun, so I was expecting Logan to love it even more this year. I love this tradition!

Heiser Farms was about 15 minutes from downtown Dundee in Dayton and it wasn’t crazy busy or crowded. Bonus for us! We went early. 🙂 For $15 we got into the farms and could do a bunch of the activities. There were a few things that were extra money but we didn’t feel like we missed out not doing them.

The first thing was the hay ride to the pumpkin patch. Logan wasn’t quite sure about it but once the tractor started moving he was all about it!

It was a short ride to the pumpkin patch, the right amount of time for a toddler. 😉

The pumpkin patch was pretty big and well maintained. There were pathways and trails covered in hay, which was nice, and there was also a corn maze (we didn’t use it but next year I think Logan will love it).

We didn’t get any pumpkins because they were super huge, but there were a lot of good-looking pumpkins.

We went back to the main farm and checked it out. There was a band playing and they were really good! When we got there, they were playing Johnny Cash. They sounded great! I wish I’d gotten the name.

Next Logan and Michael climbed the hay mountain and went down the slide (I posted some cute videos on my Instagram if you want to see them) and I went down once with Logan. 🙂 And then Logan got to see A REAL fire engine! The expression on his face was absolutely priceless and adorable: