Family Renion at the Beach

The girls and I drove up to Portland for a week with the help of my mom (now that's love, I tell ya'). John had zilcho vacation time with his new company, so we flew him up later on for the weekend. Here are some highlights from our trip -

Rose Garden and children's museum in Portland with Christy

and her boys before we headed out to the beach.

View of Manzanita Beach from the beach house.


One of the few moments of sun we saw, so a freezing swim was a must!



We really had the beach to ourselves - always a plus.


Crafts with grandpa


Bikes on the beach, which was actually plan D. Several of us headed out to ride horses. Unfortunately, the only two places we knew of both told us they weren't doing horse riding this year. So we moved on to plan b - some go carts just down the street. Just our luck...not open on Friday. No problem. There was a bumper car place further on down the road by the beach in Seaside. Things were definitely not going our way. They were closed too. We parked the car and found an ice cream shop to decide what to do with our afternoon.

On the way, we found a place that rented out these cool beach bikes. It's harder than it looks. You have to balance yourself and steer with two hand cranks and shift your weight. Even harder was the bike pulling the bike trailer. Thankfully my dad, Shannon, and I took turns pulling Natalie. Kimberly and Alicia zipped along the beach on their bikes and we had a blast (aside from the very sore legs afterwords!)

Visiting with the gang (missing: mom and dad, Mike and John - who are over to the side working on a puzzle)




And best of all - having John join us and spending another rare sunny moment on the beach.