Yesterday Nathan took a vacation day off work, and we packed up to head off to the beach with our visiting family. The day was pretty darn near perfect for the Oregon Coast. Clear blue skies, slight breeze, temps in the 70’s. With the breeze it got a little chilly so we needed jackets, but we had a blast!
After a little bit of play and a picnic on the beach, the kids wanted to go check out the ocean. Audrey was the only one brave enough to completely submerge herself. Elias and Nathan had fun jumping in the waves. Simon was very excited to go explore the ocean. Here you can see in a hilarious series of photographs what his experience was:
Poor Simon. The tide knocked him over, and I just took a picture of him crying and went off to cheer on Elias. Auntie Erin took pity on him and gave him some comfort. I do feel a little bad about it in retrospect…but he needs to learn to appreciate the ocean…and auntie was there to give him some love.
Here are Nathan and Elias jumping the waves:
After a good while in the ocean, we were all frozen. So we went back to our “camp” to warm up. We made an Elias burrito:
All of the kids loved playing in the sand. They dug big holes, built castles, buried each other, and all sorts of other fun sand play.
Then it was time for kites! Elias and Simon have a cow kite, and Audrey and Sonya have a cat kite. We had them both in the air, and the kids took turns flying them. Elias let go of his kite twice. The first time, the wind wasn’t too strong and it was pretty low to the ground so I chased after it for about twenty yards while carrying Simon who giggled the whole way. The second time, though, the kite took off and made it all the way over the Mo’s Restaurant building before a kind beach-goer grabbed it with his dog ball-thrower thing.
We had a blast at the beach. The Oregon coast is always fun, but what made it even more special was being able to spend the time with Grandpa, Audrey, Sonya, and Auntie Erin!