Hug Point

At the beginning of Summer, our friends Richard and Marissa were telling us about a great spot (hug point) at the beach they had taken their kids, at that point we had decided that we must make a trip with them. We still regret that Charlie didn't see the ocean until he was 18 months old and he lived in 2 west coast states. Anyway, a lot of beach trips are a must this year while our kids are young. I knew I had been to hug point, but I couldn't visualize what it looked like.

When I found out that Max was off of work on July 3rd, we decided that it needed to be a beach day. Richard and Marissa were planning on it too! Joe and Lindsay were going to come as well but had a change in their schedule that made it so they couldn't come.

Anyway,  Richard and Marissa invited us over for breakfast then we all loaded up in their new 8 passenger car. It made the sitting in traffic a lot more fun, apparently everyone wants to go to the beach on 4th of July weekend.
We eventually got there and Lacey and Charlie didn't waste any time before getting wet!

My boys!

Marissa with her babies!

So Hug Point is pretty great because there is this separate water area to play that isn't the ocean. The kids can play more safely and the water is slightly less freezing. The actual larger water area for them to play isn't really shown here.

Give this kid a ball and he will love you forever.

So Max ran over to me just to tell me to take a picture of Richard and Marissa because they were both sitting on their phones. We were laughing about it but really they were brief and I'm pretty sure they were just checking the time.

Early soccer lessons with Dad.

Miles and Lacey playing in the sand.

Charlie took a break from the water to run away from us.

More play...

Then daddy got some time with both his boys.

Sand Goatee!

Richard and Lacey

Happy little surfer!

Charlie enjoying the little "hot tub"

The wind picked up and both Charlie and Lacey were cold so they spent a brief moment cuddled up on the blanket.

We found another way to warm up Charlie was to bury him in the sand. He LOVED this!

Max had tried to sculpt some abs on Charlie but he was just too wiggly for them to stay!

So then Max and Charlie hiked to the creek above the waterfall along with Richard and Marissa while I held down the fort. 

Miles and I enjoyed some waterfall time!

When they got back I decided to do the little hike with Charlie, so I could check it out. We followed the creek a little ways up but mostly played on the cliff, throwing rocks in the deeper parts of the creek and making big splashes.

I was just trying to take pictures of Charlie jumping in puddles but I laughed hard when I later realized it looked like he was a giant.

Marissa and the kids.

We also went to explore a little cave!

Richard and Lacey

Just as we were packing up we realized we hadn't pulled out the bubbles yet so Max did just that, and the wind was strong enough, it just blew the bubbles for him.

We then hiked back up to the car and I decided to take out my excellent beach braids that Max had given me, and since I hadn't been in any photos up to this point...this happened...

But the fun wasn't over yet, we drove up to cannon Beach to go get some delicious seafood at Mo's. We ended up sitting on the Patio with a beautiful view of the beach as the sun sunk lower in the sky. I only took this cell phone photo, but you can imagine how beautiful it was. OH yeah, and there were wild rabbits just past the restaurant wall so that was a super exciting moment for Lacey and Charlie. 

We then drove home, didn't hit any traffic, and eventually all 4 children were asleep! It was a beautiful trip and I'm so glad we get to take our kids to explore and enjoy this beautiful world.