Oregon Coast- Days 1-3

We started off at 4:00 a.m. thinking that Rowen would fall back to sleep immediately once we started driving. Nope, think again! He was awake for over an hour before falling asleep. There was just so much excitement in the air and so much to look at along the way. He slept very little while we drove (I think only 2 hours on the way there and only 50 minutes on the way home and we were on the road for 10 hrs. one way!). We kept Rowen entertained with movies on the laptop, many toy cars and trucks, food, songs, books, tickle games, and we stopped every two hours to let him out to run and play. Eventually we arrived at our destination and spent the next 3 days on the beach near Astoria.

The freedom of running long stretches on the beach was a total thrill for Rowen. He would just keep going and going and going!

Exfoliating :)...

Rowen had sand EVERYWHERE the ENTIRE 7 day trip! Thank goodness my parents' camper has an outdoor shower so we could wash him up before getting back into the car at the end of each day.

Grammy and Papa watching the waves... they made this trip possible for us and were the most generous, loving, playful grandparents a kid could ask for!

Eric took this photo. While taking it he said something like, "Too much Mustard!"

We spent all day everyday of this part of the trip on the beach, from breakfast to dinner. We all slathered on the sunscreen but still burnt a little. Poor T.J. got the worst of it. His sunburn was so bad that we could actually see the steam coming off of his face. I was trying to capture it in this photo but of course you can't see it. He did heal up eventually, after many long naps no less :). Long naps aside, T.J. was an AMAZING uncle on this trip. He played with Rowen, helped cook almost all the meals, took tons of amazing photos (which are not uploaded to our family site yet), went on a few runs with me on the beach, and was just plain fun to be around. We missed Erin (sadly had to miss the trip due to work) but will never forget this trip with our Teej!

This is at the camp site where my parents and T.J. stayed. It was lush with green plants and trees. The dirt was moist and the bugs were everywhere! We spent very little time there because we were at the beach all day but Rowen loved exploring the forest behind the camp site.

This was Rowen's first time seeing the ocean and he ran right into it. Absolutely no fear of the water or waves on the entire trip. Eric was constantly in the water (up to knees only!) with Rowen. He couldn't get enough of it.

On the way back to our hotel after our first day on the beach. As you can see Rowen was a very happy boy. The fresh air was just what we all needed!

Each morning we would meet my parents at their camp site and then head down to the beach. You can park your car/camper right on the beach! We cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner right here each day. We took naps, drank beer, ate lots of yummy snacks, and played, played, played. By evening we were all tired and ready for bed.

Rowen's Tonka truck was a huge hit on the beach...

I don't think Rowen could have had a better time!

During the last hour of our time on this beach a man drove up to our camper and said that a pod of whales were just beyond the waves. We went to watch and were lucky enough to see many whales and a few sea lions. The photo above is of one of the sea lions we saw. You can barely see it's head but it is there! That was an amazing part of our trip. We watched the whales for a good hour. It was very difficult to get a picture though.

Off to Rockaway!