Trip to the beach

In the spring, Elvin got together with another dad to plan a trip with the kids.  We wanted to take them away for the first trip since the pandemic started.  We rented a little house on the Oregon coast and in late June packed six kids into the van and headed west.

Our kids are good friends with the kids in the other family and they even had fun during the car ride.

On the way out, we stopped by a maritime museum in Astoria.  They had several ships on display and one you could walk around on.  It was a lighthouse ship.  Before the days of GPS, it had been anchored off the treacherous shore which has lots of submerged rocks to give passing ships a point of reference as to where they were.

The museum had a Coast Guard cutter on display.

And we watched a short movie about life in the ocean.

It was fairly interesting.

Astoria is also a Coast Guard base and we learned that they save about 300 lives per year!

There was a Coast Guard cutter parked there and waiting.  It was piloted by a female Coast Guard member, which was pointed out by Karina because she cares about things like that.

The museum gift shop had lots of interesting stuffed animals, which Gabriel was attracted to.

And finally we arrived at the house.  Hot dogs and watermelon was on the menu.

Gabe, never constrained by tradition, stuffed his hot dog buns with potato chips.  And for some reason, he was doing this while holding the hot dog on his lap.  He said it was yummy.

The house was less than one mile from the beach so off we went.  There was a tall sand dune that you could almost slide down.

There was lots of fun in the sun and the waves.

And after coming home and cleaning up, it was time for games.

Here is Gabe sleeping, somewhere under there.  I guess he wanted privacy.

Breakfast in the morning consisted of bacon and eggs and fruit.

And then it was time to head back to the beach!

Karina found some sort of a jellyfish on the beach.

It was just the dads and we just chilled under a tent.

We went back for lunch to refuel.

And fit in a board game.

We brought shovels and buckets and the kids dug pits and built castles.

They were proud of their handiwork.

We tried to keep the kids hydrated with Otter Pops and Gatorade.  They were happy to comply.

It was a very nice day at the beach!

By the afternoon, the temperature was really heating up.  This was the weekend of the heat wave, and the "heat dome" included Warrenton where we were staying.  It was nice and cool at the beach.  But going even 1 mile inland to the house and the temperature was 15 to 20 degrees higher and was in the mid- to high-90s.  Also, it's usually not this hot at the coast, so the house did not have A/C.

So some resorted to using frozen water bottles as pillows.

It was so hot that this is what happened to our stick of butter.

The house was quite hot, so after dinner we went back to the beach for a stroll, where it was much cooler.

They found the shell of a Dungeness crab.

And the next day it was time to leave.  Pancakes were on the menu.

We put the key back into the lockbox.  This little gadget was intriguing to Gabe.

We stopped by a WWII-era fort nearby on our way out.  It's called Fort Stevens and one of the several forts that guarded the mouth of the Columbia River against intruders from across the ocean.  We tried having the kids pose for a picture on the jeep but we were unable to have all the monkeys hold still long enough.

And we ended the trip by getting custard for dessert.  It was a yummy treat for a hot day!

The kids were tired on the car ride home, which is a sign of a good vacation!