Noah Turns 8!

 

We celebrated Noah's 8th birthday with a party at the park!

The boys have reached the age where it is just a good idea to NOT have a party at home.  Boys this age are FULL of energy!  So this was the perfect venue.  And fun just to have a relaxed afternoon celebrating Noah and his special day.



I made Noah's birthday cake for him.



The kids had fun playing at the park and then we had cake and Noah opened his gifts!



This was our gift to Noah.  Love Andrew's sweet smile ~ he was happy for his cousin.





These two LOVE one another.  Michelle always says, "Andrew is Noah's favorite person."  They have a special relationship.



And Dan loves to give Isaiah a hard time. 



Dan played ball with the big kids.



It was great just to sit around and enjoy the sunshine!



Love this of Isaiah chatting with his Dad.

 

Handsome boy!



Someone thought she needed a second treat!



Family photo and all of our crazy kids!

Heading Home!

Before we left the beach I took a photo of all the puzzles that we put together throughout the week.

 

We've stayed in quite a few houses over the years at the coast but this was definitely our favorite.  It was fantastic.  There were 16 people in the house and it lived very comfortably for us.  I snapped a few photos of the main downstairs living space as we were finishing packing up.





And one of the sweetest pictures of the week.



Noah is a sweet boy, but at this age he isn't overly physically affectionate with a lot of people.  (Which is perfectly fine, Matthew is the same way).  I just mention it because it is one of the reasons why this photo is so endearing ~ to see how he's holding on to Andrew.  These two were together all week and were still disappointed when it was time to say goodbye and were asking for more time together.  They decided that they are going to be college roommates someday.  They have very different personalities and yet they balance one another out beautifully.  Their friendship is a joy to watch

We managed to pack up and were out of the house by noon.  No small task.  The unloading, sand and laundry when we returned home is a whole other story.  We love the beach trip but it is a LOT of work.  And totally worth it.

We were so grateful for this week away.  We are already looking forward to doing it again!

Day 6 ~ Last Full Day at the Beach

Our last day at the beach was just a really relaxing day.  We started to pack for home and had some outings as well.

This is one of my favorite photos from the beach....

 

(Michelle is one of those people who can look beautiful right out of bed in the morning.  I am another story entirely).

It just reminds me of the pace and ease of the beach.  Slow mornings, Pjs, really good food.



And of course, puzzles.  They were really addicting.  When we first arrived it took me a while to slow the pace of  my internal self down enough to have the patience to focus and do them.  But once I did, it was so relaxing and it was really hard to break out of that slow, lazy mode and re-enter life on the "crazy train."  I think that was really the gift of this vacation.  Being able to really disengage and relax in a way that we haven't done for many, many years.



I couldn't resist snapping this photo.

Cocktail hour happened every day at 5 before dinner while at the beach.

After breakfast Dan, the kids and I got ready and headed to "Devil's Punchbowl" where it was reported the tide would rush in to make a spectacular display of water and seaspray.



Not so much.

It was a little anticlimatic.

Clearly we visited at the wrong time.

Nonetheless, there were beautiful views to behold.  Though the wind was blowing HARD.  (That's the Oregon coast for you).

 

 

It was so windy the kids had trouble appreciating the views, but they cooperated nicely for a photo.

 

We returned to our van where a lady left her door open and it blew hard into the side of my van (that JUST had all the body work done).  We now have a dent with red paint on it to always remind us of our trip to Devil's punchbowl).  Grump grump.

We then returned to the house and made a final trip to the tidal pools to explore.



Andrew loves all the sea creatures to be found.



I have to say, the sea is just awe inspiring.  The plants and creatures it produces are fascinating.  I find Barnacles to be so interesting and completely disgusting all at the same time.  I can't stop looking at them and yet they completely gross me out. Anenomes and Sea stars are my favorite.



We took the kids exploring and found some neat caves and rock formations.









The tide was coming in and we decided we should head back before we would be forced to swim.



Sweet Isaiah...



And love this of Noah.  Not posed at all, this was just his joy....





Andrew can always be counted on to find something slimy (and sometimes decomposing) to haul around.





Noah and Andrew waded out to a rock....



Where they stood talking (and perhaps scheming) until Noah took his shoe off and threw it into the ocean.



Then he stood on the rock motioning with his hands for the shoe to come to him (it didn't cooperate) so I waded in (jeans and all) and retrieved the shoe, and that brought an end to our beach explorations.  (We were pretty much done anyway).



We returned home to start packing and had a lazy afternoon.  This was the upstairs bonus room ~ only a small part of the room, it housed another sofa, a card table and two futons.  It overlooked the ocean and the little girls slept here.  Bugs Bunny happened here as well.



Love this lazy scene. 



The little boys worked really hard under Nana's direction to set up a fire pit.  There were dreams of hot dogs and S'mores on the beach but the wind proved to be uncooperative.  Everyone headed out to see what the kids had accomplished and posed for a picture. 





Dan even used some engineering to move this HEAVY piece of driftwood to make more seating.



Leverage and spinning.


And the ever so humble celebrating of his awesome idea.



The die hards hung in there for a bit, while the rest of us headed back inside and made S'mores in the oven.






And because we were trying to empty the refrigerator, there was ice cream to be had too.



All in the name of not being wasteful.  We all did our part.





I ended the night with some cards with Isaiah, Mom and Mike.  Isaiah likes to play a card game that I grew up playing, called Shanghai.  Such fun that he's old enough to do these things now. 

It was a great last day at the beach.  I went to bed feeling a little sad that our vacation was coming to an end.