The Trip We Always Meant to Reschedule

On August 13, 2006 Rob and I headed to Portland, Oregon and made a stop a my sister's house in Washington. We were going to go visit my sister, Mindy, and her husband, Steve for the week. This would've been the first time that our family had ever been to Aunt Mindy and Uncle Steve's house and Rob's first time visiting the Oregon coast. We planned on going to the Portland Zoo and also going to the beach. We never did reach our destination of Portland because the day we arrived at Krista's house, Rob's grandpa passed away. So after a 12 hour drive, we turned around the next day and travel 12 hours back home. We never did reschedule this vacation until now. The first tearful words out of Abby's mouth when she found out Aunt Mindy had passed away were, "But we were going to go to the zoo with Aunt Mindy." I had to tell her that we will get to go to a way cooler zoo with Aunt Mindy someday in heaven when we can actually play with the lions, tigers and bears instead of just look at them in cages. We didn't go to the zoo on this trip, but we did find a great little place called Rockaway Beach, Oregon.

We stayed at a place called the Sea Treasures Inn. It rented out fully decorated three story condos with a fireplace, decks right on the beach and a hot tub. Here is the first level of the condo. It had a garage and air hockey table on the ground floor.

Here's the view from the top deck. Isn't it gorgeous?

Here is the top floor.

More top floor from the other direction.

Here is the middle floor. There were two bedrooms. One queen sized bed, one king sized bed. There was a fold out couch on the ground floor and a nice sectional on the top floor.

The ocean was soooooo cold. I love Hayden's expression in this picture. He wasn't quite prepared for the temperature of that big wave.

I love this picture of Rob and Weston. Weston cracks me up. Look at how he is hovering in midair. It's a good thing we're still young and can keep up with this kid....barely.

Here's a picture of the condos we stayed in taken from the beach.

Weston would get handfuls of sand, run to the ocean and say, "Ready, set, fro," to which he would throw his handfuls of sand into the ocean making sure the water didn't touch his feet.

On this trip I introduced the kids to laughing cow cheese. It has become a new family favorite.