Beach Weekend!

 Last month, Elizabeth organized a weekend getaway with all my siblings to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. My dad picked out Yachats Beach  and Elizabeth found a wonderful beach house for us to enjoy.  We arrived on a Friday evening. just around bedtime. My boys were so excited to see their cousins that we stayed up playing for awhile. Miles got so wild that he broke a lamp. We took a night walk down towards the beach and listened to the ocean. After our short walk, we went home and we put our boys to bed, and everyone else seemed to go to bed in the mean time so we did the same. Our room was comfortable but for some reason our children took turns being loud and awake all night! They are usually decent sleepers so this was so weird. Needless to say Max and I didn't sleep either so at some point in the early morning Max got up with the boys and took them for a walk down on the beach so I could rest a little bit.  (good man right?!) They ran into my dad who took these photos.

 

 The little morning nap made a huge difference. We got up and ate some breakfast. A week or so before this trip, Austin had mentioned that he had a kids fishing pole that Charlie could use. Charlie was thrilled and kept talking about it for days. The day before the trip, Charlie kept asking me to text Austin to remind him to bring the fishing pole and that he was going to be dreaming about fishing all night. (He's never been fishing before) Austin surprised Charlie with his own brand new Star Wars fishing pole. It seriously made him so happy, and now Uncle Austin is definitely his favorite uncle.

After breakfast we went down to the river flowing into the ocean to practice some fishing! Max and I were still pretty exhausted and in a daze but we were trying to really enjoy our time at the beach and the perfect weather. 

  I loved seeing my boys play with cousins. They love them so much.

Gwenevere got to do some fishing too.

Then some beach play!

the crazy seagulls

 

 

Pants are optional if you are two or younger 

We explored a lot of tide pools and then went back to the house for some lunch and Harry Potter trivia. Then decided to go explore a nearby lighthouse. There was a beautiful trail up to the lighthouse.

 Max hiked with Miles like this for a good part of the hike.

 We were able to get a guided tour of the downstairs of the lighthouse.

On our hike back Gracie was happy sharing her trail mix with my boys and that sure made my boys happy!

 And the hike back down.

When we got back we played around the house while James and Elizabeth prepared dinner, Max was able to go get a little bit of sleep. My dad put the new Star Wars movie in which we haven't seen. Charlie was enthralled with it. So I guess we have that to look forward to. We enjoyed an amazing ham and potato and salad and rolls dinner. After dinner Elizabeth cooked up some birthday brownies while we cleaned up and finished Star Wars. Also, Dan finally arrived around this time. Shortly after brownies, we got our tired kids in bed. Everyone else was pretty tired too so we ended up going to bed not long after. This night was much better. I woke up early to get our breakfast ready. Gwenevere helped me cut up the fruit. Max got the boys ready and packed us all up. We filled up on sausage and puff pancakes with fruit then finished loading up our cars.

 

We weren't done playing with cousins when it was time to check out so we made out way to the Hatfield Marine Center.

We got to touch, sea urchins, sea anemones, and starfish. 

 And learn about topical geography.

 

We then made our way to Mo's for some lunch before finally making the drive home.

 

A good weekend at the beach!