The Oregon Coast

It's been a bit crazy around here lately.  The end of July brought an impromptu trip to South Dakota for my grandmother's illness and to say goodbye to her, as well as her funeral.  We returned from that just in time to unpack and wash clothes before packing up and heading off yet again.

We finally were getting around to checking of #34 on my 101 Things List.  There are few people that we enjoy hanging out with as much as my cousins Matt and Vanessa and their kids.  In the last three years we have managed to build a pretty strong relationship with them and to see them quite consistently as well.  Lucky for me, they LOVE Canada, and can't get enough of it.  They have been here FOUR times since Summer of 2009.  Their kids love it too, and every time we come Rusty has so much fun with them that he doesn't want them to leave.  They planned to head up here this summer as well, but we decided to add a little twist to that this year, and we drove down to meet up with them for a mini vacation on the Oregon Coast.  We spent three nights camping just south of Cannon Beach and we loved it!  Originally we had planned to try to go to California and Disneyland, but that will have to be in the future when the kids are older.  For this summer, three nights of camping was just perfect.  We had not tent camped since we had Rusty, and we were excited that both of our boys did well with it.  I think that means more camping in the future!


We went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory...mmm, free samples!

We also enjoyed the Garibaldi 1800s Steam Engine in a ride from Garibaldi to Rockaway Beach and back.

We hit the beach...several times, and came home with a tiny HUGE amount of sand.

We loved all of the beautiful scenery we took in.

We bought Rusty his very first kite and flew it on the beach, the winds were perfection!

We enjoyed lots of saltwater taffy in Seaside and true crab nirvana at Dooger's in Cannon Beach.

We had a great time sleeping in our borrowed tent, and the boys did great.  Rusty loved heading to bed in his sleeping bag each night and Rocky slept awesome.  It must have been all of the fresh air!  Kev and I made notes for things we will do differently next time, but overall, we had a blast.  I love me some fresh smores cooked over a campfire, after all!