Spring break on the Oregon Coast

During our Spring break, Jill had some friends from Calgary come down to experience "Oregon." We decided to spend some time doing activities with them while they were here. They came on Saturday (March 29th) and we took Jill, Derek, Coby and Abby and the Johnsons (Jill's friends and their 4 boys) to a Blazer's basketball game. Shelby was kind enough to stay home and babysit Maggie and Ellie. It was fun. We then stayed up till midnight or so watching movies, eating nachoes, etc. The Johnsons then got up early (at least earlier than we did) and took off for Silver Falls in Oregon and Florence, OR where they were going to ride dune buggies and see the Sea Lion caves.



Tuesday morning, we got up and drove to Tillamook, OR where they have a cheese factory that you can tour and buy lunch, ice cream and cheese products. As we were running late, we skipped the tour and had lunch, ice cream and Jill got the cheese curds she as been wanting. We then took off down the coast to Newport where we met the Johnsons at the aquarium. We enjoyed seeing all the fish and marine sealife there. We especially enjoyed watching them feed the sea otters.

Next we found Abby's Legendary Pizza and fed ourselves. To work off a good and filling dinner, we found the local swimming pool and swam for an hour and a half. All the kids are becoming good swimmers. Coby pulled off a front flip off the diving board if you count landing on your backside.

We ended up staying the night in Newport and then going to see a lighthouse just north of Newport the next morning. We saw a mother seal and a baby seal swimming nearby. We also went down to a cobble beach which had these really cool "cobblestones" instead of sand on it. There were also a lot of harbor seals sunning themselves out on the rocks. Last we took a climb up the largest lighthouse in Oregon. It was a pretty good climb to get to the top.

After a quick lunch in Lincoln City, we went in search for a beach. We finally found one that we settled on. The sun was shining but the wind was cold and strong. We pulled out a kite and finally got it up. I thought the wind was going to rip it apart but it held up. Derek had to hold on to Ellie when she had her turn holding it so she didn't fly off. Coby had also bought a nice new frisbee that got caught in the wind and flew out into the ocean. We never did find that one. Luckily they are easily replaced. After a short time, we decided that the wind was making it less enjoyable and we decided to head home.


We were going to attempt Ape caves again Thursday morning but found out on the internet that the road is closed right now going up there so the Johnsons headed out in the morning on their own up towards BC to continue their adventure.





We had a nice visit with them and hope they plan a trip out this way again some time. Coby especially liked having some boys around.