Heading Home

This was a great little vacation. We all had a wonderful time. Lon was sad to leave, but he also was looking forward to seeing the cats again.

We got up in the morning and Lon had one last jacuzzi tub. He made himself a bubble beard. 

One last trip to the beach. I did not get up early this morning to go look for a float near the hotel. I do not want to be greedy.

One last bit of playtime at D beach. Okay, we did look in the grass there, but we did not find any floats.

Last breakfast at Pig N' Pancake! Our vacation was so much fun we thought we would look at houses for sale. Nothing we liked, yet.  Lon and I had our regular order. 5 sand dollars for him, and 3 sourdough pancakes for me, with strawberry compote. YUMMY. This time Mark got sausage and pancakes!

Then we were out of town and going north on 101 toward home. We had never stopped in at Blue Heron French Cheese, so we thought we would!  Sadly, Lon fell and scrapped his knee. He was not happy.

Lon relaxing on a stool. This lovely chicken came up to say hi.

Lon thought the mosaics were very cool.  I think I am going to show him how to make one of his own soon. 

Lon told me that these are highland cows, like Hammish in his book. He wondered if they like toffees too.

Then it was just nothing but driving up the road.  About an hour or so from the house we got caught in a 45 minute back up. It was caused by a car wreck.  Lon did well in the car.  Now we are home, getting things put back in order, turning the heat on and doing laundry.   Now we are looking forward to our next trip! 

A Great Day In Lincoln City!

Today was a wodnerful day! 
I got up an hour later, the tide was much lower this morning. I set out to find a float! I watched as this girl came down a set of stairs to the beach, in her pjs with her cell phone as a light and find a float! REALLY? I had fun anyway, I met some nice people, and a five month old yellow lab named Stella.   As an added bonus an hour walking on the beach is a real work out!
When I got back to the room the boys were up and about ready for breakfast. I know I was!

Yummy, smokey, chewy bacon! Lon has now decided he likes bacon! 

Yesterday was hugs and tickles, today is coloring and goofiness

goofiness I tell you!

After breakfast we went to the Lincoln City Farmer's Market. It is still very small, but they had some fun things.  Lon tried a spudnut. He was not impressed. I LOVE spudnuts!  I was so happy they had some there. Depoe Bakery was the name of the bakery. Yummy stuff.

We went down to Depoe Bay, we like walking around there.

The waves were no where near as big as yesterday. This is a good thing. No one got wet on the sidewalk.

The Whale Watching Center. It is undergoing a huge remodel.  Lon was looking for seals, or whales, or anything. 

We walked under the bridge to the shop side of Depoe Bay. Lon saw this lady with a bag of peanuts. It took me a minute to see the ground squirrel.  Lon had fun trying to feed the little thing!

In one of the shops they had this contraption. It cost a quarter. It was the most fun to watch all the balls run around the tracks!  A very well spent quarter

Back to our side of the street. I don't know what I was looking at, but I had not seen the spouting horn at Depoe Bay before!  It even has a plaque

I like the rainbow in this picture

Even on days that the surf is not super rough, the horn can go way up!

Then it was FINALLY time to pick up our fused glass. Lon was so excited to see how his piece turned out. It is great! Maurice and Dan are wonderful down at Mor-Art! We will be going back there next time we are in town. 

We walked down to the Sears glass studio and watched them blow glass.  We walked across the street to Volta to see some of the finished pieces.  When we were in there, we saw a family with two floats they found today.  She said they were at D beach, right in the grass. There were lots of people who were just walked by them. Hmmmm, this is something. They put them out all day, you say?

But first we went to the 53rd annual Lincoln County Fireman's Ham Dinner. Which is held 11am to 6pm.  We had a nice lunch. Lon was very good at lunch even though he did not really like the ham or mashed potatoes.  We were very pleased with him!

There were not many little ones at the dinner when we were there. So Lon got to climb all over all the equipment to his heart's content!

Lon had a dedicated volunteer fireman who spent alot of time with him explaining everything and answering all his questions. This was the sled they attach to the back to the jet skis.  Lon thought it sounded like lots of fun.

I did talk Mark into stopping at D beach. He rolled his eyes. He was not going down on the beach in his good shoes. Lon and I did. Lon found a big stick and put it in the D and ran after it all the way to the ocean.  I played with him a little bit, then I said, hey Lon, what can it hurt? Let's go look at the grasses.  Lon was game to try.

LOOK WHAT WAS THERE! IN THE GRASS! People were on the beach, lots of them, but no one was really going up to the grassy area. Even though in the pictures for Finder's Keepers it shows the floats in the grasses!  These are floats that the area artists blow and the Convention and Vistor's burea puts out on winter weekends to help bring people to town. AND I FOUND ONE!

I think it is cool it says Lincoln City 2012 on the bottom.

Lon wanted to find one on "our" beach in front of the hotel. So we walked down the beach in search of a float. No luck for Lon.

He was not overly dissapointed.  He got some more playing time in on the beach. That is the most important thing

Playing Island with Dad. Lon likes to watch the water swirl around him. We only let him play Island if one of us is playing with him, usually Daddy.

Lon building up a large damn behind the rock wall while Mom and Dad looked for agates and other pretty rocks. He did gather up some nice and pretty rocks too

A little bit of dinner coloring and cuddles.

Lon wanted fish and chips for dinner. They did not have this item on the kid's menu. I asked the waiter if I could get a half order of fish and chips since there was no way Lon could eat an adult portion. The waiter talked to the chef. It was a go!  Lon thought that was the coolest thing, to get something he wanted for dinner that was not on the menu! He finished his entire dinner!

Lon wanted dessert, so we let him get it. They forgot to bring out a fork for him!  We did get him a fork so he could eat his cake

He did a good job on the cake. We brought it back to the room. He said it was too good to just leave there and he will eat it tomorrow.  Then it was back to our room and one last jacuzzi tub while Mom and Dad packed up. Sadly, this is all the time we really had to spend here.  In the morning we drive back up the coast.  I am sure there might be an adventure in there somewhere!

BIG Rolling Waves

I did get up at 5:30am to search for the floats.  I am glad it was dark when I started out with Lon's toy flashlight.  Because had I waited for first light I would have seen just how incredibly stupid I was being. There was a high surf warning last night that I did not know about.  The tide was super high and still coming in. I got caught in one wave, but it was not over my boots. I was up against the cliff, I am glad it was a small wave. I decided to go back then.  I talked to the front desk and they told me since there was a high surf warning, they did not drop the floats last night.  Maybe today. So I will be getting up early tomorrow. With a better flashlight, and only when I think it might be safer. HONEST Mom! I promise.

High surf, yes, I think so. It is up to the seawall of the hotel. I have not ever seen the tide up so high! The beach was off limits for us the rest of the morning.  (this was at 7:30am)

Hugs and tickles at breakfast!

Since the waves were big, we decided to go look at them, to see how big they were. While this looks very sunny, it is amazingly cold. The wind was fierce and the spray was frigid! But it was so beautiful

I am  going to add all the wave shots to this blog, there are going to be some pretty good pictures!

Lon was not so impressed with the awesome power of nature. He was cold and getting wet. This does not make for a happy little boy.

I did not know they had a blow hole at Boiler Bay look out. Well, now you know!

We drove down a bit farther, to Depoe Bay to see what the surf was doing there.  Pretty cool!  Yes, Grandmothers, there will be a movie coming to you soon!

The next several photos are going to be waves.  This is at Depoe Bay

The Devil's Punch Bowl seems to be full of milk punch today!

Now back to the blog about Lon, very few, if any beauty shots coming up

Back in Lincoln City, we stopped by Strung Out on Beads and Coffee. The gentleman owner made Lon the very best hot chocolate EVER! Sprinkles and a cherry, what more could you ask for? It was wonderful!  He made me a fabulous dark chocolate mocha!  It was a nice little shop, he also teaches wire wrapping of agates! Might take him up on that!

We went back to the hotel to see a lecture by Ray Troll on the Fossil Freeway. Well, that did not work out as we had planned. Lon was not ready to sit still for about an hour and he was the only child present. We decided to try something else. We did say hello, but sadly, that was all.

The only thing we had really done in Taft was go to Mo's. This time we did some other things!

We went to Mor-Art. We had walked in there last year, but we only bought a small glass piece.  They told me then that even young children can make pieces to fuse. This year, we did just that! Lon got a 6x9 inch panel to do and I did four coaster size pieces! Lon was so excited to start his project. It was his to do, what ever he wanted we were not going to tell him it was wrong.  He had so much fun with this. It was so worth the 25 dollars!

Once you get your design the way you want it, you dab a touch of elmer's glue on the back of each bit of glass so that when it is moved to the kiln it does not move out of the way you wanted it.  The gentlemen who own Mor-Art are wonderful. Maurice and Dan (sorry, I am pretty sure it is Dan, but maybe it isn't) Very nice people.

Lon's design, pre firing. We will pick it up tomorrow after 10:30am.  I can not wait to see what the final product will be. I will show you the ones I did then, maybe!

If we were going to see the museum, we had to do today. It is only open Wednesday through Saturday!  They were also doing a quilt documentation today.  I was fortunate enough to see the quilt from 1896 that a lady found at a Goodwill near here. She was knowledgeable enough to pick it up, for 7 dollars.  There were no rips or tears or fabric loss anywhere. This was a gem, but I did not feel right about taking it's photo since I did not know the owner.  Lon had a great time in the kids room. Playing on the saddle. He enjoyed that alot. I think I should find him some horse riding lessons.

Bird marionettes! I remember making something like that.  I think I have to remember how to do that and soon! Lon loved them. He thought I was so cool since I knew how to make them work! 

After the museum, we walked around a bit and stopped for ice cream at Eleanore's Undertow. Yummy ice cream.

This year, Lon was not afraid to walk out onto the dock at Mo's!

Tiki Tim's older bigger brother!

After Taft, we went back to our hotel. There was daylight left, and the beach is right there!  The seafoam was incredible!  There was SO much of it!  Huge piles drifting around the beach. Someone told us there were 20 foot breakers out there, with that much foam on the beach, I believed her!

My boys

The heavy surf churned everything up so much we were unable to find any good stones. The sand covered much of the gravel bed were we found alot yesterday!

Then it was time for a warm up bath, and off to dinner. Mark likes Lee's. We call it Stan Lee's. 

Lon ate all his fish, most of his fries, so when he asked for dessert, we said yes. Chocolate Lava Cake ! He ate all that, too! I think he might be getting ready to grow again, and we just bought new pants !

Mark and the kitchy decor. It is fun.  After that it was dark and rainy! Time to get back to the room and relax.  I might be getting up early again tomorrow!