Living it up in Lincoln City

A little over a week ago our family spent four days in Lincoln City with my Mom and younger brother and had a lot of fun! My brother joined the army and will be shipping off for boot camp in a few weeks so we wanted to have some family time before he leaves. My Mom found an awesome house for us to stay in which worked out really well. We all had a bed except for the kids, but they think sleeping in their sleeping bags on the floor is a treat. We also had a bit of a view which we enjoyed, a hot tub which we really enjoyed, and were able to bring our dog Zoe. Perfect.

We had pretty good weather for our stay but it was absolutely gorgeous Friday morning when we spent several hours on the beach. No wind, lots of sun, warm enough to go without coats...does it get any better? Ethan has finally gotten over his fear of walking on the sand and happily spends hours playing in it. If he had a stick he was over the moon. Grace has always loved playing in the sand and discovered the joy of collecting seashells. We also played our "chase the ocean without getting wet" game with the kids which was a lot of fun. Ethan shrieked with laughter when we held him while running from the waves but wanted absolutely nothing to do with putting his own feet on the cold wet sand. Grace didn't mind it.

We visited the Outlet Mall there three times (once was just to exchange a few things for sizes though...does that really count?) and otherwise stuck to the beach or the beach house. We played a lot of games including the perennial favorite Pass the Pigs. The kids really liked that one. We also hit up the hot tub every night which felt super great. We even brought the kids in with us a few times and they loved it too.

The highlight of the trip for me was going tidepooling with Gracie. Ethan didn't care for walking on the rocks so he stayed on the sand with Grandma and Daddy. Gracie on the other hand loved it! We found a bucketful of shells (only picked up the ones that didn't have a living creature inside!), touched some pink sea anemone, and found some pretty agates. I even handed the camera off to David to get some photos of me to prove I was there.