Well perhaps the title should read: 40 Year Dream – but the song is called 40 Day Dream, and really – my 40th birthday kind of felt like a day dream. Like many weekends in the winter, the one that occupied my birthdate happened to be one that required us to be away from home for a gymnastics meet.
Sigh.
I really wanted to spend my b-day with my family, but cooped up for four hours in a gym to watch four minutes of my eldest daughter perform did not sound like a proper way to enter my 40s. I took the challenge life presented to me, and decided to turn the trip into a birthday extravaganza complete with sleeping in a tree house, and swinging for steelhead.
success.
Awesome present!
Prior to departing on the big birthday tour, Becky let me open a present early – a new Stihl splitting axe. I was thrilled to get this lovely tool as a gift, even though it is just a gateway to spending hours doing the above. Splitting wood is therapeutic, and I look smashing in safety goggles.
After stocking up the wood rack by the stove, we set out for our destination – a trim little house in the trees outside of Sandy, Oregon.
The Crawford Ewok Village
While it appears the house is on posts, it is actually “floating” between three trees – something that was confirmed when it got a bit breezy during our first night 🙂 The posts are a fallback feature in case the suspension system in the trees goes awry. The family who built the house took a course from Pete of Treehouse Masters fame ( before he was famous ).
Sleeping in a tree house has been on the wish list for Becky and I – so I was thrilled to share the experience with the girls. It was magical.
Jenga in a floating tree house is challenging
On my birthday – the day of the gym meet – my good friend Josh joined me for a day of floating and swinging for chrome on the Sandy. Note how catching was not listed in those activities. Indeed it was a classic winter steelhead day – gloomy, a bit rainy, and lots of swinging and not a lot of grabbing by the unicorns. Regardless, it was the perfect way to spend my 40th.
We finished off the day back at the treehouse with some presents, cake, and s’mores. Best gift was a “fart gun” as seen in the Minions movies. My girls know me well.
Underwear and a fart gun. Score! Love that accent wall.
By the time we started watching movies in the loft of the treehouse, the day filled with swinging and smiles had taken its toll on 40 year old me. Becky snapped this photo of me passed out. Daydreaming in to the night:
