The Coast

Monday. Back to work.

Last Wednesday, David and I drove the 5+ hours to Lincoln City, Oregon to spend some time with my family. Every year for the past few years my family has rented a house on the Oregon coast and we all escape there for a few days of R&R and family time. My grandparents came from Colorado, my aunt and her 2 kids came from Oklahoma (her husband is in the Navy so he's in Kuwait right now).

I made blueberry muffins with a streusel topping and banana chocolate chip muffins. I had spent the entire evening before we left in a baking frenzy. I think I made 500 muffins. No, not really. More like 40.

My family overdoes it a little on food. Meaning, we had made a list of things we would need to make meals and have snacks at the beach house then ended up having WAY too much. I'm not sure if it was assumed that all we'd do is sit and eat all weekend or what, but my muffins didn't really get eaten. Why eat a muffin when you can have a chocolate donut or biscuits and gravy for breakfast? Hm? Anyway, bless my twin sister's heart for breaking out the muffins on Saturday night when we were at her house playing "Ticket to Ride" (known as "The Train Game" in our family).

One of the things I love most about Lincoln City is the outlets (please don't throw things at me). I found some GREAT deals there this weekend. Let me share some with you. $10 Eddie Bauer jeans (low rise, boot cut!). $5 button up short sleeved shirt for David at Gap. $10 white, CUTE (you'll just have to trust me on this one) sandals at Coldwater Creek. $6 sweater at Coldwater Creek (I know that CC is typically a more "mature woman's" store, but this sweater is super cute and comfy). The shirt and headband in the picture to the left each cost me $5.

David gets very bored shopping at the outlets as do most of the other guys. So, they went home after an hour of outlet shopping and the girls stayed. After the outlets we hit the Shops at Salishan which is a really cute little outdoor shopping area on the Salishan resort property. We usually don't hit the jackpot there, but there are some really neat shops that we enjoy browsing. One shop in particular had Vera Bradley handbags on sale for 50% off! My sweet mom insisted that she buy each of us girls a Vera Bradley handbag. You can see mine in the picture to the left of me, Mom, and Lindsay. Isn't it cute?

Let me show you some pictures of where we stayed. I liked that it was brand new and spacious but I was not a fan of the neighborhood (a lot of older, not-so-nice homes).

This is David's and my room (to the right). Unfortunately the only pictures I got were of our room, the bathroom, and Lindsay and Craig's room. I think other people got pictures of the upstairs part. I'm so self-absorbed, I know. Anyway, this was our room downstairs and it connected to the main bathroom downstairs.

Lindsay and Craig were in the other room down there, so below is a picture of the bathroom and of Lindsay in the bedroom she and Craig shared. I love my twin for giving David and me the better room. She and Chris slept in the very upstairs on a fold-out couch where, in the next room, she suffered little sleep due to my dad's thunderous snoring. Last summer when my family rented a beach house, David and I got the room that had a twin bed with a trundle that pulled out from beneath it so he slept in the bed and I slept on the trundle. We held hands until we fell asleep and that was the extent of our cuddling during vacation. The winter before that, my parents rented a cabin on Mt. Hood where David and I got a bed that was in a cubby hole with a door on it...he couldn't stand up fully in that room. So, on this trip my sweet sister volunteered to take the sleeper sofa. Thank you, Carrie!

At some point on Thursday, my sisters, their husbands, and David and I took the little kids to the beach access to fly their kites. It was WINDY. Lots of wind. The kind that turns kite string into a butcher knife that cuts your skin when you try to wind up a kite. Max, my 11-year-old cousin, has a milder form of cerebral palsy because he was born really, really early. Sometimes he's not very coordinated but I actually think he manages very well for his condition. He enjoyed the kites as did his sister, Emma, who is 8. The wind was too strong for Caleb and he got tired of holding his kite after about 3 minutes. All in all, it was fun for the 10 minutes we were down there.

Let's take a minute to enjoy the scenery, shall we?

Okay, that was nice. I think my Monday will get better from here on out.

While we were at the coast, a family friend, Ashley took photos of our family. Unfortunately the skies were cloudy so the lighting wasn't all we expected. However, here are just a few of the photos she took. I had to lighten them a bit.

I do have some photos of when us girls went shopping. I'll post a few but the one of my granny sitting on a statue of a deer will have to remain sealed out of respect for the elderly! On second thought, I'll surprise you with the photos of us girls another time. This blog is getting pretty lengthy.

On the way to Beaverton from Lincoln City, we stopped in at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. If you have never had Tillamook cheese, you are missing out. It's all we eat in our house. I've been to the factory several times but David had never been and neither had Craig (Lindsay's husband). Caleb wanted to ride in our car so we strapped him in and boy, was he happy to be there with his uncle David. That kid is stuck to David like white on rice. They even took a tour of the factory together (ahem - that is David's $5 Gap shirt in the pictures).

All in all, it was a great trip. I'm tired. I was supposed to take the bus in to work this morning but I wimped out. I got an extra 45 minutes of sleep by driving in so I took it. Things would be so much easier if I had a normal carpool partner.

Skies are clearing up - should be in the mid-70s today.

I hope you have a great Monday! I'm not sure when I'll make any new recipes. I didn't take pictures of the muffins but I'll try to post the recipes anyway - they were decent.