Beachy Bums

Here's a rundown of how we spent our week in Lincoln City.
DAY 1
Departure time: 6 a.m. Arrival: 1:00'ish

This is me cleaning up Spencer since he decided to puke literally the second we pulled in. Not the best timing, but certainly not the worst.


After getting everyone cleaned up and changed, we headed to the beach. Thank goodness we got there early, this was probably the nicest, warmest day we had.

DAY 2
Due to rainy, cold weather we didn't take many pics. Spencer got to head to Depoe Bay with everyone while Jason, me, and Sophie went shopping for some warmer clothes for her. They found a delicious place to eat called "Avast, A Pirate's Bite" that we frequented throughout the week. Her brownies were to die for.

DAY 3
Also a cold, rainy day. My camera got another break, until the evening. We were all sitting around when Colton comes busting through the door telling us he had broke one of Uncle Jason's teeth. We didn't take him seriously at first, there were no tears, no yells from next door, no visible signs of any mishaps. Then Jason walks in, smiling and holding in his hand the temporary cap he's had on his front tooth for 5 or 6 years now. Uh, this is late Friday night. What is there to do? We checked the Yellow Pages for any dental places that would possibly be open on a Saturday. Not much luck in a tourist town. We already had plans to head to Walmart so we added 'teeth glue' to our list and headed out. I'm looking around trying to locate their raingear when I notice that Jason isn't with me anymore. I turn around and find him searching the ground. Takes me a minute to realize what he's doing. He's searching the main aisle of white tile looking for his tooth. You see, he had decided that rather than be embarrassed looking like a hill-billy, he would just keep shoving the cap back on as best as he could. He never anticipated it falling out, especially in the middle of Walmart. 20 minutes later, the little piece of plastic was found, along with some glue that claimed it would work. It didn't. The rest of the weekend was spent with me doing most of the talking in public, but occassionally I would forget and leave him open only to realize he had popped the cap back on so he could communicate without looking like white trash.

$90 later, late Monday afternoon, Jason had two full front teeth.

DAY 4
We packed a lot in on Saturday. The dads and boys went fishing at the hatchery first thing that morning, they all caught some trout and my dad had it smoked. Mmm, good stuff.
Then we headed to the bay to crab. Not a lot of luck in the crab department this year. Lots of catching, not much keeping, they were all too small.

Getting the pole ready.

Digging a hole. Later, Spencer climbed in it.

She was a total beach bum. We couldn't believe how much she loved it!
We met up with everyone else that evening at a park they had found the day before. It was a great playground and had a gorgeous view of Devils Lake.


Since the weather was great after two days of rain, we headed to the ocean after the playground.

Aunt Rach and Aunt Lisa jumped waves with the kids. They loved it!

DAY5
Another sunny day, so we headed to the other side of Devils Lake where we rented two pontoon boats and cruised the lake for a couple hours.


It was a little cool and breezy but the kids loved it. We also got to see a bald eagle flying above us out on the lake. It was pretty cool. After going home for lunch, we headed back to the bay.

The boys had a great time playing in the water. After a bit, Steve and Lisa and their fam joined us. Easton and Graycie took the alligator and shark out into the bay and Easton ended up a little too far out. Startled by a little drop off, he let go of the shark and it went floating across the bay. Gramps decided that he would go rescue the shark. A mile or two down the highway he accessed the beach by a little restaurant and waded in up to his mid-calf to retrieve the shark. He provided a little entertainment for all the window-side diners.

This is what one looks like after throwing one of those face-planting fits straight into the sand 'cause mean Aunt Rach wouldn't let her eat a piece of sand covered licorice.

She loved playing in the water, no matter how cold it was!

DAY 6
We headed into Newport to the aquarium. While we were there, we got to watch one of the biologists suit up and climb into a tank. She was removing two of the eels, who had been sick, to see if they were responding to some medication they had been given. After catching one in a net, a volunteer from the aquarium carried it down the ladder and placed it in a bin of water right in front of us. It was pretty cool to watch.

They added some funky artwork to some of the tanks.

Spencer in the shark tunnel, always a super cool part of the aquarium. Even Sophie loved watching all the sharks swim by.

We had lunch then stopped in Depoe Bay to do some quick shopping. It was just me and the kids with my parents at this point, Jason had headed in for his dentist appointment. Soph and Gramps had stayed in the truck. Lucky for him she decided she needed a little nap!

DAY 7
We woke up to another rainy, windy, cold day. We lounged around most of the morning and then hit the outlet mall that afternoon. By evening it had cleared and we spent the last evening of our trip walking down the beach. I was totally lame and forgot to tote the camera down to the beach with us.

DAY 8
We try to drag out our vacation as long as possible so we plan to make some sort of stop in Portland for some last minute fun. Last year we went to the Enchanted Forest, this year we went to the Portland Zoo. We spent 5 hours there and still didn't see all the animals! We took a little train ride which was super pretty and went through the "Dinosaur Walk" which is a temporary exhibit.

They were a little shocked when this one spit at them!

This is before T-Rex growled...

This is after. Needless to say, it caught Easton off guard! We ended the day with a quick bite to eat then headed home. After all that walking, and being 33 weeks pregnant, it was the quickest trip home since I slept almost as much as the kids did. I would wake up, check on Jason, and immediately fall asleep again!

Thanks so much to these two amazing parents/grandparents for all they sacrifice, especially peace and quiet, to take all of us with them when they could so easily leave our sorry, poor bums at home!