Beach Day

Thursday we headed to Newport as a family along with my parents. We pretty much begged my dad to come, it was a much needed bonding time for him and his grandsons, even though it is hard for him to leave town for a full work day. Our first stop was the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

It's been years since I have been there, maybe even since Keiko lived there. My mom scored a sweet groupon deal. Way to go techno-savvy deal-loving mom...someday you and I will probably even text.

My cautious Emmett was finally convinced to touch (barely brush a finger against) a star fish.

Ezra thought some of it was pretty cool too.

Emmett thought the sharks we super cool. He likes the story of Jonah getting swallowed by the large fish, and he's pretty sure the large fish is a shark.

Emmett had been asking me if starfish have teeth, so I told him to ask the touch tank docent. He was a little shy though.

Ezra was wishing he could splash in the water.

After the aquarium we went and ate some yummy seafood. Then we went to the beach. We found a nice dune to block our wind for some sand and sun.

The breeze down by the water was chilly, classic "I didn't realize I was sunburning" weather.

We did all the typical beach things, played in the sand, wrote our names in the sand, swung seaweed around...

...ran down sand dunes...

...flew a kite...

...and jumped the waves.

Then we went down to the waterfront and got ice cream and watched the sea lions.

What a beautiful and perfect beach day!