The Beach!

One of the things on our "must do" list when we went to Oregon was to go to the beach. The cousins live about an hour and a half away so we packed up on Saturday after breakfast and hit the road. 

We went to a "local" beach that was a lot less crowded than the popular tourist spots. To get to it you had to go through a tunnel under the road and then through a tunnel of trees.

 

What I found so interesting was how wide the expanse of sand was! And how abruptly it ended into foliage and the road.  There were huge dunes that made walking through it interesting.

At their house it had been up to 100 but at the coast it was only in the low 80's. Another fascinating thing was the drastic temperature difference between the beach and the water line. You could literally feel the temperature drop as we walked closer to the water. It felt like a ten degree difference in a matter of 50 feet!

The girls only ocean experience has been in the Florida gulf with warm water. They wanted in their swimsuits, but I think it was quite a shock when they actually felt the water!

Retreat, retreat!

You can see the shock in Peaches face...haha!

She quickly hightailed it for the shore!

Where she started making some sand leggings for herself. 

She kept grabbing handfuls of sand and smearing them up and down her legs. I really think she was trying to warm herself up!

Bug and Boo still got their swimsuits on even though it was so freezing.

 

I finally got brave enough to wade in and was truly shocked at how cold it was. It felt like ice water. My feet literally started aching from cold after being in it just a few minutes.

But the kids would warm up on the sand and then dart back in for a few minutes.

So fun to be there with the cousins!

Cutie girls!

Boo fell backwards and was gasping from the cold water.

These pictures do not do this place justice. It was so beautiful there and in the background (above Bug's head) was a really cool lighthouse sticking out on the rocks.

Daddy found some kind of...sand crab? They were weird little creatures that were buried in the sand.

If you grabbed a big handful of sand and flipped it over you could get about five of them out. It was kind of creepy to realize how many of them were just under our feet and we didn't even know it!

It was cool to watch them tunnel back into the sand as quickly as they could.

 

Time out for a family picture!

Daddy took Peanut on a shell hunt while K, S, and E took turns burying each other.

 

Then Daddy, Boo, Peanut, and I went on another shell hunt while I carried Peaches trying to get her to sleep. Thankfully she did fall asleep even though it was super windy. I wrapped a beach towel around both of us and after walking around for a while I was able to ease down into a beach chair and get her a short nap. Once we got back Bug wanted to go on a shell hunt so Daddy took her too...he ended up walking the beaches for 2 hours and had sore feet by the end of the night!

Cousin fun!

When it was time to go we were all carrying things so Cousin E, without being asked, walked Peaches back, alternating between holding her hand and carrying her. So sweet! 

After getting the sand off as best as we could we hopped in the car and drove a short way down the beach to the Newport docks.

We watched a boat come in that had been out fishing.

It must have been a fishing tour because the people getting off the boats were taking their fish over to be cleaned by the professionals who were so fast at getting the meat off the scales/bones.

Then we had dinner at Mo's. It was a fun place, and a tradition that they always go there when they go to the beach. We were proud of Buggy for trying fish and the kids all got shark toys on their water glasses.

 

Which Peaches was quite perplexed by. She kept looking into his mouth like, "Dude, where's your insides?"

 

After dinner we walked down to a pier to check out the wild sea lions. They were so funny and SO loud! Peanut said, "Mommy! It sounds like they're burping!"

 

They were so funny to watch!

 

It's hard to tell but there were probably hundreds of them on this pile of rocks!

The dads headed to get the cars while the rest of us kept walking down the boardwalk to check out the boats. Some were just coming in from their day of fishing, and it was really neat to see all the different kinds.

Such an awesome trip with wonderful new memories made. We had a great time!!!