to the coast

Last Wednesday Brian took his last final of the second term.  We had a whole week and a half ahead of us with no studying, no tests, no early morning classes, no long commutes, no stress.  None at all.  Since our time here in Oregon is probably limited to just two or three years, we decided we needed to splurge- and by splurge I mean 'cheap' by anyone else's standards- and go on a little vacation.

We headed south to the coastal city of Newport.  In the Pacific Northwest, you never say you're going to the beach. You always say "coast".  If you say beach people look at you funny.  

Here's a little rundown of what we did:  

McKay outside the weirdest shopping center I've ever seen.  I have no idea how these little shops stay in business due to all the junk we saw inside them, but they were sure colorful on the outside.  They also had plenty of pirate and sea animal statues, which the kids loved, so it was worth the visit.

Hanging with Wally the walrus.

This is right below our hotel.  The beach was pretty cold this day but we had fun finding dead crabs on the sand, which as you can imagine was very exciting for my four year old.  We had just eaten at a little seafood restaurant near the pier where Brian said their clam chowder in a bread bowl rivaled Disneyland's.  

The thing McKay looked forward to the most was swimming at the motel.  This is the view from our room that we walked in to after spending the evening at the pool.  These kids loved the pool.  We could have gotten a motel two minutes away from home and I think they would have been just fine.  It was fun to see McKay swimming around, sans floaties even, and Ellery jumping in over and over with a pool toy in each hand that she didn't let go of the whole time she was in the water.

One of my favorite parts of this little trip was seeing how excited these two were to be on a real vacation.  McKay desperately wanted to live in Newport forever and they were so excited to be staying in a motel and sleeping all together in the same room.  I had a weird parenting realization that Brian and I have this family that we can take on vacations.  I guess because they are getting old enough to really get things.  

The first thing we did on our only full day in Newport was visit the tide pools on Cobble Beach.  We saw all sorts of little sea creatures and even some seals.  McKay was brave and touched about anything he saw, but Ellery flinched every time her hand hit the water so she never really got too far with touching more than a starfish.   

After the tide pools we walked around this lighthouse and enjoyed the beautiful scenic views.  One of my favorite things that McKay kept doing on this trip was say, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" while raising his eyebrows up and down.  We would then try to say what he was thinking, which was usually whatever the next activity we had planned.  He said this probably twenty-five times.  He was so excited.

We packed a picnic lunch and ate in on the beach.  The weather was so perfect this day and we were glad to be able to spend some time in the sand and near the water.  Ellery was not a fan of getting wet at all and hated the sand in her flip flops.  

After our picnic we did a little building.  They both loved playing in the sand.  Actually, Brian seemed to be enjoying himself too.   

Next up, the Hatfield Science Center.  We spend over an hour at this place because McKay was so into touching all the fish, including a sting ray, starfish, anemones, and other fish.  Ellery still wasn't to excited to touch anything but loved looking at the big octopus.   

We got to rest in the car as we drove south a little bit to the Sea Lion Caves.  McKay was really nervous to go in a cave.  The whole drive down there he was asking question after question about it.  We had no idea what to tell him, since we'd never been.  

We took an elevator three hundred feet below the highway where you end up in a huge cave where hundreds of sea lions go to rest and sleep.  The viewing area is fenced off and this is as close as you can get to them, but it was definitely close enough for us.  I didn't know this, but sea lions are totally disgusting animals.  They make huge burping noises and flop around fighting with each other for prime rock space.  And the smell!  Oh boy!  

This is looking out the other side of the cave.  Pretty view.  Not such a pretty picture, but I thought I should post it to show that I was actually on this trip. :)  The drive down to the cave was so gorgeous.  On the way back we saw a bald eagle just flying right over our car.  The scenery is just amazing.  

We had so much fun on our little trip.  McKay was devastated the morning we had to leave.  He really wanted to live there "forever".  I can't really blame him.