Wednesday, Thursday

Wednesday and Thursday of our trip were fun days. *This is a really long post, fair warning*

On Wednesday we decided to take a drive up to Tillamook and visit The Cheese Factory. So after breakfast we took off going north up the coast highway. It was a GORGEOUS day for a drive along the ocean. The sun was shining and it actually looked like summer on the coast. To get to Tillamook you branch off slightly east away from the ocean going more inland. It is a really pretty drive and we saw lots of neat little houses. The thing that struck me the most about all of the little towns we went through from Lincoln City on, was that I saw more American Flags displayed on homes and businesses than anywhere I've ever seen. Honestly, almost every single place had an American Flag mounted or hanging. It was awesome!

We stopped at a little park about 5 miles out of Tillamook and had lunch we had packed in our cooler. The kids enjoyed running around after being in the car for a while.

When we arrived at the cheese factory, it was packed as usual with hardly a parking space to be found. We weren't two steps inside the door when Kendle insisted I take a picture of her and the cows:

The bottom level of the visitors center is made up of a gift shop, a little tour with information about the factory, a little market area where you can buy cheese and other food items, a cafe and fudge counter, and the ice cream court which was the #1 reason the place was swamped. Fresh ice cream = happy people. We took Kendle through the tour portion downstairs and then headed up the elevator to the second level where you could observe the factory operations through big windows. It's amazing to see how fast the people working there have to be and how quickly everything gets cut and packaged and sent on its way. There are little videos you can watch about how everything is made and processed and it's pretty interesting. They also have a smaller ice cream station and we outsmarted the big crowds by getting our ice cream up there and having a bench all to ourselves to eat it on.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I have dreams about Tillamook's fresh German Chocolate Cake ice cream. It's heaven. I haven't been able to find it in the stores, (plus it wouldn't have the same fresh taste) so I have to rely on eating it every couple of years when we visit Tillamook. No words can describe how much I love that ice cream. Riley and the kids enjoyed some huge ice cream cones and we all were very content.

After that we headed back down stairs to look through the cheeses and specialty food items. We ended up getting some great stuff, but my favorite purchase of the day was this:

These make the best Pumpkin Muffins, so I had to stock up while I was there. I'll save them for a chilly fall morning.

After we left the cheese factory we headed to the Tillamook Country Smoker so Riley could stock up on his years supply of jerky and beef sticks. I tell you, it does not take much to keep him happy.

After that we went to the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. Riley's family had some deep roots in Tillamook so we thought we would check it out. We were pleasantly surprised at what a cool place it was. One of our best surprises was finding this:

We found some of Riley's ancestors who were some of the first townsfolk in a room full of pictures. Honestly it would have been like looking for a needle in a hay stack, but it was one of the first ones we were drawn too. Coincidence?

We were able to see so many neat things there - war memorabilia, old automobiles and carriages, little rooms set up like the inside of old houses, animals, Indian artifacts,....just so many neat things we were not expecting. Take a look:

As you can see from the last picture Morgan was not happy. He hated that little stroller the whole trip. I'm sure the museum people were glad when we were gone! On the way back we stopped at Beverly Beach outside of Newport and let the kids play some more since it was such a nice day. There was a little stream of water running down to the ocean that the kids had fun playing in and Kendle actually ran out into the ocean and got really wet. She is too brave for her own good sometimes! The weather was lovely though, even the Morgster did not mind getting a little wet. It was a great way to finish off our fun day.

Thursday morning we drove down to the wharf and walked around a bit. We took the kids to go see the sea lions there, they always make us laugh. Kendle kept trying to get them to talk to her which made all of the people around us laugh. I'm not sure what Morgan thought, but he seemed pretty interested. The sun was shining off the water and we had a beautiful view.

*Side note- don't even waste your time trying to fix your hair at the coast. *

After getting our fill of the sea lions and the fish smell of the wharf we drove to Devil's Punch Bowl State Park and had a picnic. We enjoyed the great weather and the sound of the ocean while we ate. We had lots of little visitors too. There are tons of squirrel's there, none of which were afraid to approach us for some food. Kendle thought they were so cute, but Riley quickly reminded her they are nothing more than glorified rodents. (Wow, way to take all of the fun out of it dad.) We walked down where we could see the "punch bowl" and it looked like the perfect place for a pirate to stow some treasure. Pretty amazing what mother nature can do.

We decided some afternoon shopping was in order so we headed to the Tanger Outlet Mall in Lincoln City. We did some school shopping for Kendle and found her the cutest back pack. There are always lots of good deals to be found, especially at the children's stores, but I did manage to snag some good deals for myself. We walked and walked, and walked some more. We worked up quite an appetite and decided to have an early dinner here:

It was super good, even Kendle our picky eater raved about her food. We were totally worn out and so we headed back to our hotel to do one last night of swimming and relaxing. We packed everything up before bed that night and I think we all fell asleep before our heads hit the pillow.

Fun Days By the Ocean

On Tuesday we woke up bright and early, and headed just a little ways down the road to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. It had been sprinkling a little that morning but it tapered off as we started walking around at the outdoor exhibits. If you have never been there, it is a very neat place - kind of like a mini zoo. Riley and I had been there before, but taking Kendle was a whole new experience. She LOVES animals, so this was right up her alley. Morgan on the other hand would have been happy to run amok and grab handfuls of the gravel by the pathways, but I digress. In the outdoor exhibits we got a close up of Sea Otters swimming and grooming themselves. Fun fact: they spend the majority of their time grooming themselves, they are very vain animals - HA! Even Morgan got a kick out of them speeding through the water and floating on their backs. They were really hamming it up. Some other outdoor highlights were the octopus (which freaked Kendle out) and the bird aviary was pretty neat. I'm usually not a big bird person, but this exhibit allows you to get right up close to them in the water and watch them dive and swim.

The indoor exhibits were a lot of fun too. The Passages of the Deep, are what they are really famous for. You get to walk through tunnels of sea life, and one in particular of sharks. The feeling of having sharks swim over your head is pretty surreal. I could literally have sat there for hours.

We made our way through the rest of the indoor portion and Kendle's favorite stop was the tide pool exhibit where she got to touch different creatures and also they had a huge glass sphere with jelly fish inside. Did you know jellyfish are 95% water? Fun fact we learned. All in all, it was money well spent and other than Morgan trying to bust out of his stroller the whole time it was great.

After that we headed to Agate Beach State Park. It is right outside of Newport and it's probably been about seven years or so since I've been there and in that time the beach had developed some big sand dunes. So it took a little hike to get close to the water. The weather was not too bad though, just a bit windy. We had an awesome time there, the kids played and played and would have stayed there forever. Riley helped Kendle build a sandcastle fort and Morgan found a stick he tried to knock it down with. His little legs needed some good running around. We were wet, sandy, and loving it! I took about 100 pictures while we were there, here are some of my fav's:

We were exhausted and REALLY hungry, so after going back to the hotel and cleaning up we made a straight line for some dinner. To please all the picky eaters in our family we went to Izzy's and let me tell you, we got our money's worth. There is something about that ocean air that makes you feel like you could eat a horse.

Kendle made sure that after dinner we waited exactly a half-hour before we went swimming. I think I have unintentionally passed some of my paranoia onto my daughter. I opted to stay in our room with the Morgster who was really exhausted from the long day. I think everyone was in bed by 9:30. Too much fun makes for a tired family!

Our Adventure Begins

So I have to start off by saying that this is one of our first vacations we have taken by ourselves without any extended family. No cousins to play with, no grandma and grandpa to take a turn entertaining kids, just the four of us. We decided that we will make it our family tradition that we go to the Coast in the summer, and it was kind of exciting to think that we were blazing a new trail in our family's history. I just wanted our family to have a good time and enjoy each other. I really wanted to make this trip special for Kendle because I feel like she is growing up so fast (1st grade coming up in less than a month) and she often gets overlooked because we're taking care of Morgan. I hope we accomplished that, I think we did.

*Being the obsessive list maker that I am, I made an itinerary for every day we'd be there so we would have ideas of what to do instead of sitting around asking ourselves what to do. That turned out to be a great help. I wrote down places to visit, hours they were open, rates to get in, all the info. and it saved us a ton of time. Never knowing what the weather will do at the coast, this left us lots of room to be flexible.

Monday I had wanted to leave by 8:00, I knew that was a lofty goal, but we did end up leaving around 8:45 so not bad. We made it to The Dalles and stopped for an early lunch. Then we got back on the road and made a planned stop at Multnomah Falls. I thought it would be a good way to get the kids out of the car and get some exercise before our last leg of the trip. No matter how many times I've been there, it still amazes me how beautiful the setting and the sound of the falls are. It was a beautiful day and Kendle really wanted to hike up to the bridge, so Riley took her up there while I got Morgan out of his stroller and let him run around a bit. He saw a squirrel and almost caught it. He thought it was really funny. Here are some pictures I took:

It was a fun break, and on the way back to the car we stopped at the little visitor's center to grab Kendle some maps to look at. I think she's inherited my crazy love for maps and they keep her entertained. From there we didn't stop again until we got to Tigard to get some more gas. Morgan has turned into a not so great traveler. He has started screaming in the car and it is really annoying. He did not do much sleeping in the car, so we did lots of singing and clapping. We probably sang Bingo and Twinkle Twinkle little star a hundred times.

We finally made our way out of the forest and to Lincoln City where we could see the ocean. That always gets everyone excited and happy. It was a really nice day. We were staying in Newport, so we drove on farther south. We made it to our hotel, checked in, relaxed for a bit, cleaned up, and then headed back north a few miles to Depot Bay for some dinner. We went here:

Gracie's Sea Hag has the best Clam Chowder on the Oregon Coast, it is world famous and rightfully so. If you were just passing by, you might think it's just some hole-in-the-wall restaurant, but nothing compares. I'd been looking forward to that clam chowder for months. YUM! After dinner we walked around a bit and ended up in one of those totally overpriced but very alluring candy shops and picked out some assorted salt water taffy and caramel corn. Double yum!

After getting back to the hotel we decided to go swimming and it was a lot of fun, not to mention a great way to tire the kids out more. I swear if I ever get a million dollars I will build my dream home with a huge track and make my kids run laps at night before bed, they have way too much energy. I sat in the hot tub and tried to soak all of my cares away. The children's laughter and squeals filled my ears, and I had to smile as I watched them swim and wrestle with their dad. Our vacation was off to a good start.

Home Sweet Home

We're back! I can't believe our week away went by that fast. It was definitely not long enough. Today I will be unpacking, doing laundry, cleaning out the car, putting stuff away, planning sharing time for tomorrow, and possibly get some reading in on "Breaking Dawn", that my awesome husband went to Walmart at midnight to purchase for me since I was too much of the exhausted wife asleep in my OWN bed last night.

Today will be a busy day!

Lots of vacation updates to come on Monday!