We're Baaaack!

We got back from our trip last night, and we are all really tired. We actually used up all the memory on our SD card and the internal memory in our camera! We took a ton of pictures and had a great time. If you look at all the pictures, you will know that we spent a lot of time at the beach! The kids loved it, and the weather was great, well, about as nice as you could ask for on the coast of Oregon in mid-May, anyway.

On Sunday, we stopped and had lunch in Coos Bay, then went to visit Lynn's sister, Shannon. On our way out of town, we stopped at Sunset Beach. The kids had a blast, Miles went running to the water first thing, and Ellie just wanted to sit and dig in the sand. Miles' pockets are full of rocks, I'm sure.

Then we drove south to Prehistoric Gardens, South of Port Orford. The kids had a blast there, and we went around the trails twice. Miles loved seeing all the dinosaurs. They both loved it though, it was really fun to see Miles react to the dinosuars. There was one that looked especially fierce. The kids were running up ahead of us, and I caught up to Miles stopped in his tracks just staring at it. It wasn't too hard to convince him it was safe to continue, but I did have to reassure him that it was just pretend.

We spent the night in Gold Beach, and the kids had the new experience of staying in a motel. They shared a queen size bed, and did pretty well. Lynn pushed it up against the wall, so Miles wouldn't fall out. He isn't used to sleeping in a bed. Poor Ellie had his feet in her back most of the night I think.

Monday we headed back up North, we stopped at Battle Rock in Port Orford, and spent at least an hour or more at the beach there. Miles loved running through the tunnel and going into the caves in the base of the rock, and again Ellie just wanted to dig in the sand. They found lots more rocks too. We were going to go the Cape Blanco Lighthouse, but we got out there only to discover that they are closed on Mondays. Ellie was very disappointed, but got over it when we told her we would go to a different lighthouse.

We stopped at the Game Park that is South of Bandon and had a great time there. The kids and I got to pet baby leopards. I think the lady said they were about 5 weeks old, and they were the size of a housecat. They were really soft too. The kids got to feed some goats and deer, and pet the llamas, deer, goats, and burro that were wandering around. There were peacocks all over too, which was neat. Then we went to the Coquille River Lighthouse and Ellie got to go into a lighthouse - finally! We played on the beach there for a while too.

After that it was to Coquille where we stopped at Pop's house to do a couple of things for Lynn's mom. Lynn's Aunt Suzy stopped by and visited with us for a while. Next we went to our friends Gary and Brenda's house where we spent the night. The kids always enjoy going to Gary and Brenda's . So do I! Gary let Lynn take Miles on a ride on his four wheeler. Miles loved it and came back freezing cold. Ellie was next, but was bundled up a bit more. They both loved it. It was really nice to relax and visit with them.

The next day we basically relaxed in the morning. We stopped at Coquille Produce to pick up lunch, they have great baked potatoes and salads there. We took our lunch to the park in Coquille and the kids got to play on the toys there. Then we stopped in Myrtle Point for Root Beer floats and it was off to our friends Bob and Sarah's house. Ellie had a great time playing with their daughter McKenzie who is only about a month older than her. She didn't want to leave there either! They fed us a very nice dinner, and then we were off to home.

This morning Ellie and I went to the Library for Story Time, and then Lynn had an appointment to get the temporary filling from his root canal a couple of weeks ago replaced with a permanent filling. Then we got to go out to lunch at the Chinese restaurant that we like here.

All in all it has been a very nice refreshing, yet exhausting few days, and tomorrow we are back to our routine, as well as getting everything back in order. The weather said it was going to be hot the next few days, so maybe we will get our garden planted!