Cannon Beach part 2- Sandy Beaches

For lunch we thought about going to the Ecola seafood Restaurant, but thought it sounded too much like E-coli so we went to a place called Morris' Fireside instead. It was really beautiful inside and we got to sit right by a fire. I wish I would have thought to take a picure. All the restaurants said they served seafood, but I was a little disappointed to find out that they only serve it at dinner and if they have it on their lunch menu its in a sandwich or something. I had a crab sandwich melt and McKay had a halibut sandwich. It was good, but next time I think we will do dinner so we can have a real seafood dinner.

I was bummed when I realized that out of my 200+ pics, I had no pics of the food we ate.

Next we went to the beach. The morning weather was nice, But the afternoon was perfect weather to play in the sand!

I meant to put this pic with part one. We ate a snack/breakfast in one of their parks. I just love Brin's face in this pic.


When we got home, we realized we went to the wrong beach. items from Japan have been washing up onto the beaches from the ocean. This one washed up on Seaside, the same day we were at Cannon Beach, just a little north from cannon beach.

 They discovered that the item once belonged to this Japanese shrine. Japanese belongings have been washing up on the coastline due to the 2011 Japan tsunami.

But that's ok we found our own Japanese washed up artifact.

 That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
 

Daddy Showing Brin how to play in the sand.

Daddy Showing Brin the sand castle he made.

Brin destroying the sand castle daddy made.

Brin noticed she got a little sand on her and should probably wipe it off.

Daddy helping her with that.

Me with my baby girl!

Enjoying life without school!...Well no school for a week that is.

Next we decided to go walk and look for seashells down by the seashore! I can't even say that once!

 There's that big bath again!

 That's haystack rocks behind Brinners.

I love her!

Found a big log to practice our balancing on. Notice how far away the water line is at this point.

It's amazing how quickly and far in the waves will come. It's hard to tell when they were going to stop. There were a couple of times where we were by the water line and had to TRY and run away from it. Doesn't work too well.

We brought home a lot of sand with us! A little on purpose and a lot not on purpose.

Cannon Beach part 1-Ecola Park

To kick off McKay's spring break we went to Cannon Beach! We left at 8 am and were able to spend the whole day there. We had a ton of fun! When we first got there, there weren't very many other people, but by noon there were lots of Spring breakers. I took over 200 photos. So hopefully I will be able to narrow it down to oh around 100 : )

We brought lots of snacks with us. Our favorite is G.H. Cretors Popped Corn- Chicago mix from Cosco. it is a buttery caramel corn and rich cheddar cheese popcorn mix and it is SOO good! McKay's sister Emilee introduced it to me last year and I was a little skeptical at first. caramel and cheese sounds like a weird combination. But it's a sweet and salty treat and we love it! You have to have both the caramel and cheese popcorn in each bite to fully enjoy and appreciate it!

Both McKay and I have been to Cannon Beach but never together. He went with school and I went with my family about 5-6 years ago, I think. It's crazy to me that I'm already taking my little family here.
After an hour and a half of driving we arrived!

  We started out by checking out the Ocean and beach.

 Brin seeing the Ocean for the first time!

 Geez that's a big bath!

 Brin and Mama in front of haystack rocks.

Daddy and Brin

We only stayed at the beach for a little bit then we went to Ecola State Park, which was like a 3 mile drive up the coast.

On our drive there we saw a coyote (which ran out in front of our car) , Elk, and a Bald Eagle. I definitely recommend going to Ecola Park if you come to Cannon beach.

While in Ecola Park we did a few fun activities such as:

Whale watching

In the fall Whales migrate from Alaska to Mexico to have their babies. Then in the Spring they travel back up to Alaska with their new borns. They swim near the coast line, so if your lucky you will be able to see a spurt, back or tail. There were several volunteers and binoculars to help you find them. I think I may have seen a back of a whale, but it could have just as easy been a wave or something in my eye.

Brin did a great job helping us whale watch!

 "It says here that they can be found in the Ocean? Where's that?"

 "Oh they probably mean the big bath over there!"

"K dad look through your binoculars"

For the most part Brin was a little oblivious to the scene around her.

 those seagulls can be just too interesting

It was a beautiful view from where we were!

After Whale Watching we went on a trial, which didn't last very long due to it being a little muddy. 

 

Then we headed to Indian Beach where we watched people surf. Sadly when you surf on the Oregon coast it's not quite like surfing in Hawaii. People have to wear a head to toe body suit.

If you squint you may be able to see a couple of surfers. This is definitely on my list to do. But maybe somewhere with warmer water. 

NEXT PART 2- THE BEACH

Catching the fever

It's well known that Portland is very bike friendly. Which I find a little surprising considering all the hills there are. But you see them everywhere! I even feel myself getting healthier seeing all the bicyclists ride around town.

 Okay so this is a picture of bike riders in Denmark and it's not quite this bad but there's a lot of them. And McKay could no longer resist catching the bike fever too.

This ain't your typical run of the mill bike. This is a hybrid giant! OHSU does a program that will pay you if you ride your bike to school. So we are hoping that by the time McKay graduates we can get back what we paid for it. There is so much more to bikes then I ever knew!  We are even more excited to see the Backmans this summer now so we can learn more about bikes!
Before Brinlee was born we would bike a lot! Even when I was pregnant we would bike to school. Then when Brin was born we weren't able to bike like we used to. But now that she is a little bigger she is able to join in on the fun.

I have to peddle twice as much to try and keep up with McKay. Which means my work out is at least twice as good/much as McKay's when we go riding. This is due to the fact that my bike is the run of the mill bike and I've had it for about 4 years now. Plus I have this little cutie riding with me.

Now Brinner is catching another fever! It's something that makes her daddy very happy! As I write this Brin is crying out to have the T.V. on. But not because she wants to watch cartoons, but because she wants to watch, that's right, basketball! Not only does she love basketball, but everything that even resembles a circle is a basketball. a soccerball, football, balloons, bubbles, even pok-a-dots on her t-shirt are basketballs. While it is pretty funny and cute, it's getting crazy out of hand!

I swear she can sense if there's a basketball around. We were at Dick's sporting goods and she ran up to a t-shirt and pointed to the tag and said, "ba-ball!" we looked and sure enough it was a picture of the Michael Jordan logo.

When we left she had to hug each ball outside the store and said, "bye bye ba-ball"

creating problems

Before Brinlee was born McKay and I heard a lot about how children seem to get attached to things like a blanket, teddy bear, or binky. So we thought we would be such awesome parents and stop that issue before it started. We decided to rotate through her stuffed animals and blankets every night so she wouldn't feel like she had to have the same one every time.
BIG mistake! Everything was going pretty good until recently. Now she has decided that she wants all of her friends and blankets in the crib with her EVERY night and EVERY nap time! That's 6 stuffed animals and thankfully only 2 blankets. And if you try to be sneaky and leave one out, she will know! She will get a confused look on her face and then say in a worried little voice, "bummy bummy!"  So instead of avoiding a problem, we created a monster!
As you can see in this picture there are only 5 stuffed animals. We are slowly, but surely trying to get her down to one friend a night. It's pretty cute though. When she wakes up she sweetly picks up each friend, one at a time, and hands them to me until all are safely out. Even though this is becoming an issue. At least she is learning to be a good friend.

Brinlee is starting to understand what parks are all about and is loving them. And since Portland is just so awesome we can go in the middle of winter and only need a light jacket, if even. It's fun to watch her learn new skills like climbing and going down slides.

 This is a big twirling slide. I can't believe my baby is big enough to go down one of these things! I don't know if even I could be that brave.

 We were going through and organizing Brinner's clothes that she wore only a short time ago and she decided to reminisce by trying to see if things fit her still. Now this is the part I love about having a girl! She is starting to love playing dress up. : )
Sometimes her "outfits" are a little silly. For some reason she loves putting on just one shoe and always on her left foot. And if you were wondering, her hat is a pair of bloomers of course.

She found her baby snow suit and a binky. She never liked binkies and didn't even know what to do with it at first, But once she figured it out she was liking it. Just don't get too attached Brin! She had to bend her knees to fit into her snow suit and her arms were a wee bit too long, but she looked like my little baby again! There are many times that I look at her and can totally see my family. Like in this pic. But I still see a lot of McKay's family too. I still get lots of comments about how she looks like her daddy. (But less and less now that Brinlee is getting more hair and someone else is getting less. : ))

 Here she is dressing up with the stuff she got from grandma and grandpa Jones!

When I look at my photo albums of me as a baby I always squawk about how big and round my eyes were, but I just love Brinlee's big blue eyes! She wears them much better than I ever did.

 One more thing I just had to add. The other day we were at Joanns and when I was checking out I set my phone down on the counter to pay. The lady said, "wow I haven't seen one of those phones in a long time!" And gave the same look that I would give if I saw a brick cell phone that was used in the 90s. Am I really that behind on the times? Ya I'm afraid so.