the oregon coast.

originally our plans to drive down to the oregon coast were built around a basketball tournament. once that was cancelled we decided we might as well get away for the weekend before soccer and baseball start for the older three kids and we are stuck in town for the next five months. the weather was not ideal. then again, around these parts it's only ideal about five weeks out of the year. and even that's a stretch. it was windy. to say the least. like, hold-your-coat-out-away-from-your-body-and-get-blown-down-the-beach windy. the kids refused to let that stop them from swimming outside. gw and i lounged in the hot tub until someone complained that he was too young to be in it. the other kids swam, running back and forth between the hot tubs and the pool. the pool chairs and tables were tied down. so yeah. it was gusty. not to mention that it was only about thirty degrees to begin with. we stocked up the kitchen at the local costco and spent the next few days renting movies, snacking, watching football, sleeping in, swimming, venturing out on the beach for a few minutes at a time, and exploring the strange and alluring shops downtown. we drove out to haystack rock and ate elephants ears and ice cream at the world's oldest ice cream parlor. not really, but it felt that way. we ordered pizza and wore sweats and strechy pants. we shopped at the outlets, which consisted of nike and oshkosh. pretty bad but we all walked away with new tenny kicks and sweats. on the morning that we left it started snowing, which all but shut down the poor town of seaside. we drove through bad weather most of the way and were bummed to learn that church had been cancelled at home. why is church never cancelled when we are in town? this happened to us last year too. or maybe it was the year before. anyway, the kids were great. they loved getting away from the house and the mundane things we do there. they were disappointed to find that we had only an inch of snow. little did we know how much more was in store for us.

the little boys were exhausted when we got home. i can't remember the last time bw napped. gw refused to wake up after he fell asleep in the car and he went to bed at 5:30.