Our Wonderful Summer Vacation!

Welp, we're back from Oregon! It was so fantastic! I was so sad to leave!
We left on Saturday, July 25th and traveled to Boise to my Grandpa and Grandma's house. It was so fun to see them! Then on Sunday, we went the rest of the way to Lincoln City, Oregon where my dad rented a Beach House for the week! We went through Portland and on the way there, we stopped at this beautiful waterfall! I can't remember what it's name was (Shannon, Shawnee... can you help me with that?) but it was so fun to hike up to the top bridge and take a good look at this awesome place! Here are some panoramas of it. Click the picture for a better look!

Dave and Me at the waterfall

We finally got to Lincoln City around dinner time and had enough time to run down and check out the beach before sundown. The boys in our family tried skimboarding and Lucas got really good at it! It was fun to watch them fall down in the freezing water! haha!!
The next two days we started going to lots and lots of beaches! Some of them were sandy and had warmish water, some were rocky where we found tons of agats and some of them we found some cool shells! I wish I could remember all the names of the beaches, and which days we were to which ones, but I can't. All I know is that we probably explored almost every beach from Tillamook to Newport!

Cute picture of me and Dave on the beach!!!

Way cool bridge that we got to drive over to get to Newport

Toesies!!!

I love the feel of the waves on my feet... and the sand...

I love this picture of Dave

Dave thought it was funny that his toenails didn't have sand on them.

The next morning we started out at the Devil's Punchbowl.

Funny picture of us at the Devil's punchbowl... it was bright outside.

We went to a beach that had a ton of fossils but Dave was more excited about this slug... It was huge.

The next day we went to the Tillamook Cheese factory! Delish! We sampled Banana Cinnamon ice cream and it was... eh... ok. There was so much cheese and ice cream! Probably that's what heaven is going to be like.
On the way back we stopped at the Haystack beach.

My adorable mommy and sister!!!

Daddy on the rocks.

The next morning we went Deep Sea fishing!! OK so the next picture is pretty bad, but in our defense, it was like 6:30 in the morning and pretty cold on the boat. Also, it's the only picture of Deep Sea fishing that we have. It's not a very conducive environment for photography.
We didn't catch very many fish, sadly, but we threw some crab pots in and we got lots of crab! It was quite a feast when we got home!

The next day we went to the Newport aquarium. There were so many fun things to see.

One of my favorites was this little family! The momma fish just had these babies (the little white specs) at 10:00 this morning! Both the mom and dad gaurded their little specs and if one of the other fish swam too close, the mom and dad would chase them away! Also, if one of their babies swam away, the mom or dad would go find it, suck it up in it's mouth, swim back over to the group and spit the baby back out! It was so cute!!

This was a HUGE snake! It's a 15 foot anaconda!

AHHHH!!!! Dave's in with the Paranas!!! Well, at least he's happy about it...

Gorgeous Jelly fish. Look, don't touch...

Dave! I said don't touch!!!

Way cool star fish

This fish wins the ugly fish award.

Oh my gosh, Dave!!! WATCH OUT!!!!

This is the only semi good pic I got of the shark tank. These leopard sharks were amazing!

We think this is one of the fish Dave caught while we were deep sea fishing! But we had to throw him back... Kinda pretty, though.

 

The next morning we woke up early to look around at low tide! It was sooooo cool! This is Dave trying to get on this big rock. 

closer.... closer....

Ahhh!!! abort, abort!! He had to go back and get his swimming suit on... haha!

Low tide star fish

I found a starfish on the beach and rescued it! But when I picked it up, it left this cool mark in the sand.

We found tons of sea snails. Some of their shells were so bright with orange and white and purple! I really wanted one, but I didn't want to make a poor little snail homeless, so we searched for ones that were empty! We found some pretty good ones!

This starfish couldn't decide if he wanted to be orange or purple. Kinda cool!

We had such a fun time! It was so nice to relax and have a good time with my family! 

In between all these adventures, we went shopping, out to eat, drove through some amazing country side, played uno, ate, talked, laughed and had such a great time! 

Thanks Mom and Dad for such a wonderful vacation!!! We love you!!!