Summer Vacation 2009 (Part 1)

The first part of our summer vacation started out a bit rocky. The day we were supposed to leave for the beach Elsie awoke during the night with the flu at about 2 a.m. She was up about every half hour throwing up all night long. At about 4:30 a.m. I started in with throwing up. Not what we had envisioned for the first day of our summer vacation! :)
We had partially packed the van the night before, so Mike continued to get the rest of the stuff packed as well as taking care of all the kids and me. In the afternoon I felt well enough to go ahead and leave for the beach and Elsie seemed to be feeling better. Not far into our drive I knew I wasn't completely better! We ended up having to stop three times for Elsie and I to throw up on our way to Waldport. We finally made it to the beach! Not a day I'd like to repeat soon :)
We stayed at an awesome house at Bayshore Estates in Waldport! It was almost brand new and very clean. It had an enclosed atrium area with a sandbox and was only 2 minutes from the beach access. It was perfect for a family with young children! My parents joined us for 2 of the 3 nights and we had a great time. The beach was a bit chilly but turned sunny about halfway through the trip. We didn't take many photos but here are a few from the beach.

Elsie, Grace and Weston enjoying the sand. My dad is way off in the distance flying the kite.

Papa Craig and Weston flying our huge shark kite. The wind was biting, but it was great for the kite!

I picked up this gentleman at the beach. He thought I was cute so I decided to take him home :)

My sand kids :)

When it came time to pack up and head out our van wouldn't start. We prayed hard and finally figured out our battery was dead from leaving part of the kids' DVD player plugged in. One of the maintenance men from the rental office came and kindly gave us a jump (thank you, God). We also found out my mom picked up the flu from us and had a bad case once she was home in Bend. Sorry Mom!

After leaving Waldport about 11 a.m. we drove up the coast to the Tillamook Ice Cream Factory. We had fun watching the cheese-making process and eating some fresh ice cream but we were unprepared for how crowded it would be. We agreed it was probably not worth the effort with our kids being so young and the place being so crowded. We arrived home at about 5 p.m. to 106 degree weather. Yikes! The kids were doing great and our house was an oven so we decided to go ahead and make the drive to Spokane that night. We stopped at the Dalles for Taco Time (Cinna-Crustos are my new fav. I'm sure there couldn't be much more horribly unhealthy food than deep-fried tortilla swimming in cinnamon and sugar, but oh man, are they ever good!). We finally arrived at John and Shirley's after midnight. All the kids did great and Noah only fussed off and on the last hour of the trip. Not bad for over 9 hours in the car in one day!