Oregon Trip Day 4

Day four was all about getting home. We headed to the beach first thing (right after breakfast) for one last dig in the sand and dip of our toes in the water. I spent the morning getting everything packed up, while Sam took the kids for a swim (a great way to get rid of all that extra sand you tend to pick up at the beach) at the hotel.  We also hoped it would wear everyone out for the drive home.  We picked our route to take us past the Portland Temple, and it was fun to be back on those grounds.  Last time I was there was for the dedication, when I decided at the tender age of 9 that that was where I was going to be married.

This boy loves his blanket.

There was something going on that day (there were tents all set up, and someone delivering pianos, which we thought strange since it was a Sunday) but we didn't really stick around to figure out what it was.  We walked around the grounds and took a few pictures before we headed back into the car for our next stop.  Multnomah Falls.

I am so glad we made this stop. It was so beautiful, and an easy hike up to a little bridge that crosses the falls.  It was the perfect pit stop on our way home.  And the perfect ending to a fabulous family trip.

We are planning on coming and visiting Portland and the surrounding areas many more times in the future.  We had an excellent time.  It was a lot of fun taking a family vacation, just the six of us, and just for fun.  I think it was our first official family vacation that didn't include visiting family.

Oregon Trip Day 3

I woke up early and went for a jog along the beach before the kids were awake.  Low tide was at 6:30 in the morning, so I figured it would be a good chance to find some shells.  There were lots of people out digging for clams.  Looked like fun, but too bad I don't like clams.  I came back to our room with pockets full of shells for the kids.  After breakfast, we headed out to the beach together as a family.  We decided to walk, as our hotel was only about 4 blocks from the sand.  The kids were loving the sand and sun.  It was just a tad chilly (in the 60's) but no one seemed to mind.

Levi was in heaven in all the sand.  Our little sandbox at home will likely never satisfy him now.

The boys love digging holes at the beach.

About a half an hour after we got there, I told Olivia I would teach her how to play tag with the ocean.  She put on her rain boots, and we started to head out to where Sam was wading with Levi in his arms.

 I got distracted on the way to stop and see what Noah and Harrison were doing, and then decided to go get my camera, and Olivia headed out to where Sam was standing.  On my way back from grabbing the camera, I stood and watched helplessly as Olivia got knocked down and rolled in a wave that was a little higher than Sam was expecting. Really, I should have taken a picture of it happening, but at the time it didn't feel appropriate.  Sam had  his arms filled with our 28 lb toddler, and so Olivia got rolled and soaked before Sam could help her up.  Poor girl was freezing.  Sam left me on the beach with the 3 boys, wrapped Olivia up in his jacked, and walked 4 long blocks back to the hotel room, with a shivering miserable girl.  He gave her a quick warm bath, changed her clothes, and he drove the car this time, and parked right next to the beach.  She was happy to be back, but was decidedly more cautious about going near the water.  She was content to play in the dry sand the rest of the day.

At about 11, I took the 3 oldest over to the Carousel Mall while Sam took Levi to our hotel room to take a nap.  We stopped off at seaside candyman to pick out taffy - they boasted of 170 flavors.  I told the kids they could each pick out 20 pieces.  They had fun finding all sorts of crazy flavors, including root beer float, cantaloupe, black widow (licorice with red hot cinnamon in the middle), mint Oreo, and every fruit you can imagine.  After trying some of their taffy, I think their fame must come from the huge variety of flavors and not the quality of the taffy.  Next, we went to ride the Carousel.  The kids all really enjoyed it - I'm glad that Harrison doesn't think he's too old for such things.

Harrison as he zoomed by.

We also stopped at a toy shop, where the boys were ecstatic to find lego mini figures series 9 - of which we don't own any.  They were $1 more than we are used to paying but the boys used their own money and bought 3.  We've gotten pretty good a feeling the packages to figure out what we are getting, so we didn't get any duplicates.

I picked up some Chinese food for lunch, and headed back to the room.  Sam took the kids to the pool while Levi got a little more sleep.

That night we headed out to Haystack rock.  We tried to time it right to hit low tide, but it was the higher of the 2 low tides for the day, and we hit it a little late, so it was a bit difficult to see any sea life.  The boys had a great time getting chased by the waves, and we had  few close calls.

 Olivia wouldn't come anywhere near the water, so Levi, Sam and Liv dug around in the sand next to the hill leading to the houses.

Those tiny people huddled on the edge of the Sand are Olivia, Sam and Levi.  I loved the look of Canon beach - the houses were all so quaint.  Cannon beach may be our destination next time we head to the coast.

Then we headed over to Ecola State park to look for more tide pools.  It was quite a windy ride to get up there, but we were rewarded with some fabulous views.

Hey, look, mom is on this trip too!

We walked down to a beach area here, too.  Olivia, Levi and Noah loved digging right next to a little stream.

Harrison and Sam checked out the sea life over near the rocks.  The tide was coming in, and Harrison was almost swept out to sea, but they did get a view of a star fish.  I think a stranger actucally held onto Harrison (not sure if they were helping Harrison not get knocked over, or holding on so they didn't go down) but they both made it back to dry land safely.  And on that note, we headed back to our hotel for the evening.

I had Sam drop me and the 3 older kids off at the beach to try and take some silhouette pictures.  The kids were not cooperative.  Noah kept his arms inside his jacket, Olivia could barely stay standing, and Harrison, well, just check out the pictures.

This was the first, and possibly best, shot I got.  It quickly went down hill from here. I was hoping to get a shot of the three of them holding hands, silhouetted on the beach.

Not quite what I was going for. I told them to relax.

A little better...

Apparently they took the direction to relax a little too seriously.

At least I can't say I didn't try.

I finally gave up, and headed back to the hotel. One more night, and then we were headed home the next day.

Oregon Trip Day 2

Our day started with another awesome breakfast at the hotel.  The kids ate mostly cereal, but it was fruit loops and other sugrary fun that we never have at our house.  After breakfast we packed up, and checked out of the hotel.  Today was our transition day from Portland to the Oregon coast.

The first stop of the day was to Voodoo Doughnuts.  I was told about this place by lots of people when I mentioned going to Portland.  It seems to be something of a local icon.  It is a strange place though.  I'll just go ahead and warn you, if you haven't already clicked on that link, I would be prepared for an onslaught of funny and sometimes risque themed doughnuts.  According to the people who suggested it, Voodoo Doughnuts nearly always has a 30 minute line.   That's pretty surprising for a doughnut place, or really for any restaurant, because 'nearly always' means 3am or 3pm.  It's open 24 hours and it's always busy.  We got their around 10 am, and true to form, I waited 35-40 minutes.  I didn't think that the line was going to be that bad.  There were perhaps 10-15 people ahead of me.  The line grew rapidly behind me and when I left there were probably 25 people in line.  The reason that the line takes so long to clear, is that everyone orders a lot of doughnuts.  The store has around 50 varieties of doughnuts, and people would order sometimes two dozen, individually specified.  So it just took forever. I didn't see this until I was very near the front.  But the two people ahead of me both ordered two dozen and had specific doughnuts that they wanted.  I only ordered six, and they were amazing.  Would I suggest that you go there?  It's tough.  They are fantastic doughnuts, but a 40 minute wait? That's a tough call. And it was only later that we realized we were there on National Doughnut Day.  That may have attributed to the extra wait- it would have been even longer if we had gotten there just a few minutes later, as the line was a lot longer when we left.  But the doughnuts were delicious.

After the doughnuts, we went downtown to Powell's Book.  This is a massive new and used book store.  It is an entire city block, and four stories high.  I think that the children's book area was at least as big as our local public library. I strapped Levi into our hiking backpack so that he would not go pulling everything off the shelves, and we hit the shelves.  I have never seen such a place.  There are just millions of books there.  The shelves were higher than any child, and probably many parents, were able to reach.  The whole place was also packed with a school field trip worth of 4th and 5th graders from some local Portland elementary school. I wanted to get an obscure children's astronomy book (the stars, by H.A. Rey). Harrison and Noah each found a section that interested them. Noah got several Junie B Jones books, which he loves.  Harrison got a Warriors guide book.  Mollie helped Olivia find some fun books.  This is definitely a place that we will revisit when we get to Portland again.

Our last stop in Portland before hitting the road was the Aerial Tram. This is like an inner city ski lift from one part of the OHSU campus to another up on the hill.  It was a quick ride that had great views.  The kids really enjoyed the views and the ride.

After that we headed out to the coast.  We drove west from Portland to Tillamook, stopping first at the Blue Heron restaurant.  Besides great sandwiches, they have several outdoor animals like chickens, ducks and goats. It was the perfect place to stop for an hour and let the kids run around.

 After that we went to the Tillamook cheese factory just down the road.  The kids love the factory tour and also the creamery.

We got everybody an ice cream cone and Mollie got some fun smoked cheddar cheese.

After falling off the bench of the cheese van, and hitting his head pretty good, Mollie hopped in van with Levi, who loved pretending to drive.

Back on the road we drove to Seaside, when we rolled into our hotel around 6 pm.  It was a very long day, so we just explored the room and went to bed.