A great substitute

In December, I got a letter from the resort where we usually rent a cabin at Lake Chelan.  They were offering us priority reservations.  It was December.  I decided to worry about it later.  It was a current, though ignored, item in the realms of my mental to do list but I never did it.

Then, when I finally decided it was time to get a reservation, there were not any to be had.  I was afraid I was going to be public enemy number one around here but everyone was nice to me.  (Maybe it was sort of a don't bite the hand that feeds you kind of thing.)

We decided to go to Lake Chelan anyway and stay in Wenatchee (where we could get a room) and maybe even spend a little time in Leavenworth which I always like.

Then Eastern Washington caught on fire and going towards wildfires has a certain "no" about it when you're looking for a weekend getaway.

We went the opposite direction, to the Oregon coast and it was wonderful.  A great substitute.  Maybe we'll have to do both in the future?

We stayed at a hotel in the Portland area Friday night.  We squeezed on a bed and watched an episode of The Middle on hulu.  We had to pause it while I tried not to hyperventilate from laughing too hard.

That show cracks me up sometimes.

It has been pointed out to me that my face is not really in the picture.  I'm not photogenic.  This works just fine.

My pajamas may seem a little Christmas-y.  I'm almost always cold in hotel rooms so they serve me well.  Emma's pajamas may seem like an old referee shirt of Adam's. They are.

Happily we had two other beds besides that one and didn't have to all sleep squashed up next to each other.

Saturday morning we went to Tillamook to tour the cheese factory.  Braeden said for Mark it was approaching religious ecstasy...combining two of his great loves, cheese and machines.  We watched the assembly line and sampled cheese and had ice cream cones.

After Tillamook we headed to the coast.  We rolled down the windows to smell the salt water.

Tillamook Bay

There's a picture of me standing at this lookout point pictured below when I was pregnant with Braeden.

And now there's this picture.

We walked down a hill to see a lighthouse.  There was a steep trail back up to the parking lot.  Adam said to Mark, "I bet you can't run all the way to the top."

Mark did. 

At the top he lay down on a picnic table to recover. 

I'm not sure what Braeden was doing but it seemed to help.  Mark ended up surviving.

  And lest you think Emma wasn't there too:

My pretty girl.

We drove up the coast, catching glimpses of the ocean through the trees.  Our plan was to go to Cannon Beach but just short of it, Adam veered off the road.  He heard the siren song of the ocean and could not resist it any longer.

No one could blame him.  It was gorgeous.

At first they dabbled in a little water:

I know these children though and I knew that wouldn't last.

But wait...

That water is cooooold.  (The temperature on the beach was in the 60s, the temperature in the Pacific, considerably colder.)

At this point, the Dahl genes were fighting with the Davis genes.

Guess which genes triumphed?

These are, after all, the ones who got up that morning at 6:00 a.m. and put on their swimsuits (still wet from the night before) and swam in the outdoor pool at the hotel.

I don't pretend to understand them.

When the water washed over my feet occasionally, my feet would immediately start to ache because the water was so cold.

It took Braeden hours to get warm after all of this (he stayed in the water longer than I could imagine after feeling it on my feet).  I think he would do it again any day of the week.

While I sat on the beach (dry and warm) and watched these crazy people I am related to, I felt bursting with gratitude that these four are my family.  I love them.  

It was fun to drive in the car with them, taking turns picking songs on my iphone playlist to listen to.  I enjoyed being with them without the distractions of our everyday life.

Seeing them smile made me smile.

(And I'm glad I was dry and warm on the beach.)

This is about as adventurous as I get around cold water.

The Oregon coast...

...it doesn't disappoint.