Days at the Beach

I love, love, love the ocean!  Love it!  Well I really love, love, love, the Pacific Northwest and the fact that where we are staying is just an hour drive away from the ocean is extra fabulous!
I spent Sunday morning riding 45miles on this bike path.

It was awesome.  Well, once I convinced myself that a serial killer was not going to jump out of the woods and grab me.  The first 20ish miles was pretty darn lonely, I didn't see another soul on the trail. Guess I should of known, people here don't have to get up and ride at 6am to beat the heat!  But I like to get my rides done early so I can spend the rest of the day with my family.  I saw a bazillion bunnies and almost crashed twice because a rabbit came screaming out of the woods so fast and almost under my front tire, and I saw a deer, and a snake, and what I think was probably a pile of bear poop.  Glad I didn't see the bear.  :)

Kaylee and I had been stalking the weather at the beach trying to decide if we wanted to drag us and all our kids and dogs and stuff down there for a couple days.  Royal's parents have a tiny cabin about a block away from the beach that we could stay in if we wanted.  On Sunday (Father's Day) we looked at the weather and it looked like Monday was going to be a really nice day at Long Beach, so we just decided to do it.  We went back to her house, packed clothes and towels and blankets and pillows and whatever food we could find.  We invited my dad to come and he brought his trailer (a.k.a. extra room for hauling stuff and extra bed to sleep in!) and my mom too, and all 10 of us, and our dogs,  crammed ourselves into what was probably about a 400 square foot cabin.  It was cramped, especially when it started raining (luckily there wasn't too much of that), and we slept about as well as we could of expected, but it was warm and it was a place to be!

We drove down Sunday evening and got there and pretty much put people to bed.  Monday proved to be an awesome weather day!  It was sunny and warm and low wind.  Perfect!

Unfortunately, Sam, who normally runs like a crazy-dog around the beach but always comes crazy running right back to us, while we were setting up blankets and chairs and unloading sand toys and watching who was heading to the water, took off like a rocket down the beach without anyone noticing until he was way far away.  My dad and I started walking down the beach after him and found his paw prints in the sand and tracked him probably a good mile down the beach before he headed off the wet sand and into the dunes where we could no longer see where he went.  So, we searched the dunes and after not finding him, headed back.  Sam is microchipped and tagged, so I wasn't too worried that we wouldn't get him back, it was just a pain.  I actually figured he would find his way back to us, he is a hunting dog after all, and while we ended up picking him up at the Humane Society later that afternoon, he was picked up by a man 3 blocks away from where we were staying.  But while Sam was off flushing birds out of the dunes and playing with other people's dogs on the beach, we had fun in the sun and sand and water!

The tide went out pretty far and while the big boys were out doing some body surfing, there was this awesome little tide pool that warmed up that was perfect for Easton and Willow to play in.

The best way to warm up is to roll around in the warm sand!

The weather changed that evening and wind and some rain blew in and Tuesday wasn't showing to be as nice as Monday.  So after one last trip to the beach to get wet, and getting out and having your cold, wet legs sandblasted, we packed it up and were back to Kaylee's house that afternoon.  It was a fun, crazy, couple days and all I can say is I need a nap and can't wait to go back!