november storm watching at the beach

We're on a little vay-cay to the beach for two nights. We came down right after Andrew's first basketball tournament of the season Sunday, and are coming back home today. We're staying in Seaside at the Shilo Oceanfront right at the turnaround. {Jim had free airline mileage that needed to be redeemed so we got the hotel FREE.} Sunday night, we got down here around 6:30, checked in, ate dinner at Pig-N-Pancake as it was right there and seemed like about the only place open, got a little food/snacks at the grocery store for the kitchen in our suite, and went swimming for an hour and a half, until 10. Later we all stayed up until midnight, doing TV, computer, books and just hanging out in the room all together.

If they look a little bummed, it's because they had to wait before we took them down to the pool.

Monday, after having the hotel breakfast, we drove south to Cannon Beach, Manzanita, Wheeler and Tillamook. The winds picked up and built all day long. We stopped and took the kids pic at Tolovana Beach. Next, we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory for 'Squeaky Cheese' (curds), ice cream, and the Tillmook Country Smoker for Beef Jerky--the above mentioned treats being the absolute faves of nearly the whole clan. I, on the other hand, forewent ice cream for Starbucks. We browsed the Old Wheeler Antique Mall, then drove back up the coast to the Seaside Carousel Mall where the kids wanted to go to a few shops. Kids got some things to use in the pool (water skipping hand ball, diving rings, beach ball), Catie got like her 50th stuffed animal puppy (but she just 'loves her so much' and named her 'Sunny'), and girls bought Seaside sweats. Jim & kids got salt water taffy at a candy shop. I am also not a fan of taffy, which suits me just fine. We had an early 'happy hour' dinner at McKeown's since we skipped lunch (or at least I did, as I didn't inhale bags of curds and jerky and ice cream), and the rest of the night we hung out storm watching and swimming at the pool. That night and this morning, we saw newscasters out at the turnaround filming the ocean and the weather. We kept joking about finding a way to get on TV.

Andrew saw this picture and said, "Oh, man, I should have flexed!" {He reminds me of his Uncle Jeffrey}

This morning, we had breakfast downstairs and now the kids are at the pool again. Jim and I are taking turns packing and watching them swim. We'll check out in an hour, at noon, and drive north this time to see the beach and find something to do before heading back. On our way back through Seaside, we plan to stop and eat at one of our fave steakhouses that was closed yesterday--Bigfoot Restaurant.

Post-Trip Note:
We returned home around 7:00 after having traveled home through Astoria on Hwy. 30 due to a road closure just south of Seaside where the storm flooded the road. This altered our dinner plans; we ate at The Wet Dog Cafe in Astoria, a place we discovered this summer while camping. Good burgers and waterfront view. We storm watched during the late afternoon meal. Just as with last night at McKeown's, the storm opened the door we were sitting next to several times during the meal and we had to keep closing it. We saw several sea lions and the wind blowing water spray across the Columbia.

We had a fun trip and fun watching storms, even though kids were a little spooked {mostly our big, tough boy--poor kid}. Once we were walking to our car when a big gust came nearly taking the door of the car off as Jim was opening it. Andrew jumped and ran to stand in the doorway of the brick building we were parked next to. Jim smiles and says, "Good to know we can count on Andrew in a crisis." Andrew laughed sheeplishly after he realized what his reflex action was--to run and hide. Catie was actually the least scared. Today, she was like, "I don't get it? What is there to be scared of?" We were nearly home when the radio newscast stated, "It caught people off-guard and seemed unusually stormy, but that was because we haven't seen that weather around here since last winter. Actually, it was just average to above-average in terms of storms we see in this area every fall and winter." That seemed to put it into perspective for A and he may have then realized it was not as big a deal as he was making it to be in his mind. Jess commented that the highlights of the trip for her were the storm and the swimming. I guess there wasn't a whole lot more to it, but we had fun being together.