Oregon Trip - Part 3

Our beach trip was a definite highlight!  My mom was able to get places at Depoe Bay for them and my Grandma, us, and for Jim's parents and his sister's family.  We drove over early to get to the Oregon Coast Aquarium when it opened.  We watched the sea otters get fed and the sea lions get fed.  My parents and grandma arrived after a while and we saw all the indoor exhibits with them.  

Ezra staring down a Moray Eel

Emmett and Ezra built a tepee out of sticks near the aquarium playground

 In the afternoon we met up with Jim's parents at the bay front.  We saw lots of boats, sea lions, people crabbing and other interesting sights.

 Then we drove up to Depoe Bay.  Our room wasn't quite ready and we heard from Beth that there was a whale that they were watching in Boiler Bay, which is about a mile away.  We went up there and saw it surface and spout quite a few times.  Then we went and checked in and got dinner going.  The view from our condo was amazing, we were on the third floor overlooking the ocean.  We grilled up hamburgers and hotdogs and all 13 of us ate together.  The kids and I, along with Winn and Audrey went swimming in a swimming pool that is half indoors and half outdoors.  The weather was so much better than I was expecting, it was actually comfortable to be outside in a swimsuit (until you got wet).  As you can tell, Jim really enjoyed having his new camera and did a great job documenting our trip.  He narrowed down the photos for the blog for me, as there are probably a thousand pictures from our trip.

 Wednesday morning we cooked breakfast and had everyone over.  Jim's parents had to leave early, but Beth and her kids joined us at the beach until early afternoon.  It was fairly cool, especially in the breeze, so we set up camp near some rocks that broke the wind.  Later in the afternoon the sun came out and it was beautiful.  The kids loved climbing on the rocks and playing in the sand.  The sand was pretty gravelly, so it didn't make good sandcastles.  We flew our kite and Elliott had some luck with his micro-kite.

 After the beach Elliott had a nap and Jim, my Mom, Emmett and Ezra went into Depoe Bay.  They saw a whale jump out of the water and heard about the local whales.  Then Jim took Emmett and Ezra swimming and Elliott and I joined them after his nap.  That evening my parents watched the boys while Jim and I went out for good seafood.  After dinner we walked around Depoe Bay and saw some river otters.  One of the otters got up on a dock and stole a fish out of what appeared to be a closed rubbermaid container.

The river otter thief

 We went back and got the kids to bed and watched the ocean, including what appeared to be some coast guard training.  We also watched a movie.

 Thursday morning we swam one last time and checked out.  It was a stormy day, so we were very glad for the weather we had the day before.  We drove up the coast to Lincoln City and went to the outlet mall for some shopping.  The boys got frozen yogurt while I shopped some and we came away with some good deals.  We found a place for Jim and I to get some good fish and chips and then drove back to the valley.