Have you been to Memorial Park in Wilsonville? It is AWESOME. I didn't take pictures of the playground, but it is AMAZING. Google it, and there will be images. We met Trey's friend Ryland and his mom, Kim, at Memorial Park on Friday morning, and they had a bit of fun on the playground but had the MOST FUN at the splash pad. I love this splash pad. My pictures don't do it justice. Google it. As a side note, this day was REALLY HOT, so the boys had fun while their moms sweated to death.
Later that day, we met Dan and Kristina and their kids at a hotel by the airport. Is there a better way to kick off the holiday weekend than swimming a hotel pool with Subway sandwiches and growlers of beer? I didn't think so. The kids had a great time swimming, and we left with an extra car (Dan and Kristina's minivan while they went to the midwest for three weeks).
On Saturday morning, we headed to the beach for a long weekend with Kris and John. We started out with a pancake breakfast and then hit the road.
We spent the weekend in Newport and stayed nearby in Otter Rock. The weather was perfect (probably 20 degrees cooler than it was at home) and we had so much fun on the beach. I won't narrate every picture (there are a lot of them - trust me, I have more), but I think you'll get the idea that we spent a lot of time on the beach and it was fabulous.
Lunch at an Irish pub.
The grown ups were happy to be cool (I was wearing a coat!) and we had yummy beer while Trey was happy to curl up with the iPad.
Walking along the beach at Otter Rock
I was in heaven with my book and my boy on the beach.
On the fourth we headed to Yaquina Bay State Park in Newport. The plan was to watch the fireworks over the bay. (Spoiler alert: while we had an amazing evening with amazing sand dunes and beautiful views, we weren't quite in the right spot to watch the fireworks. We saw a lot of the private ones, but once the public ones started and we realized we couldn't see them, we headed back to the car. This worked out fine as Trey was Ready. For. Bed.)
We climbed to the top of this bluff which meant that Trey and the dogs could run around the sand dunes while John and I sat on the top of the bluff and drank wine. Perfect. Is that sand just not gorgeous?
I don't think that Kris reads my blog because she would die if she knew I was posting this picture (but, hey, I didn't post it on Facebook, did I?), but I think it is effing hilarious and I could not stop laughing that weekend every time I looked at it. Not sure what Cooper, her dog, is trying to do, but Kris certainly doesn't like it.
Here's a better family shot:
The next day we went to Devil's Punchbowl in Otter Rock, and the tide was out. We were able to hike down and into the area which was really cool.
Checking out a tunnel to the ocean...
Trey wasn't thrilled.
Looking for creatures
We found one of our new favorite restaurants in Newport, which we frequented twice, called Cafe Mundo. It's kid friendly, has cocktails and delicious beer, the food is wonderful, and they have fireplaces in some of their tables. We loved it.
That day we went back to Yaquina Bay State Park so that we could play on the dunes some more.
Pretty flowers at our house
Before going to dinner at Local Ocean Seafoods, the grown-ups sat outside and drank a bottle of delicious Archery Summit Pinot Noir and played Cards Against Humanity while Trey watched a movie. It was a pretty perfect day.
We are so lucky to have Kris and John as good friends and travel partners. We are especially lucky that they tolerate traveling with a five year old and are flexible with our parenting needs. What an awesome weekend!
