Family Vacation {October 16 & 17}

With our anniversary coming up toward the end of October, Zac and I talked about what we should do.  Because we've never really taken a family vacation with the kids (other than to McCall), we decided we should go to the Coast.  We worked it out so we could make it happen and planned our trip.  It was quite the ordeal packing for 6-7 days away from home with two kids, but we made it happen & I thought we even did a pretty efficient job of it. (:  Although it may not seem the most romantic of ideas to include our kids on our anniversary trip, we would not have been able to do it otherwise.  And, the memories we made were so worth it.  We had plenty of time to ourselves when the kids were sleeping too, which was nice.

We packed the car Friday night after the boys were in bed so that early Saturday (16th) morning we could just pull them out of their beds in their jammies and get on the road.  Of course Beckham decided to have a blowout and puke all over me...which he never does, but it didn't dampen our spirits!  When I pulled Grayson out of bed he whispered, "Where are we going?"  I said, "To the coast."  He said, "Make sure you bring my shoes, okay?"  Okay buddy. (:  They both slept for a bit in the car and I had several ideas from friends about what to do for entertainment which helped.  We had a DVD player set up in the car with about 20 DVDs to choose from.  Guess what?  He watched 15 minutes of the cartoon Robin Hood and that was it.  For the whole week!  Too funny.  I told someone when we got back that had we not had it, he would have cried for movies all week.  Crazy kid.  Another idea Jenny gave me was to buy a bunch of stuff at the dollar store and let Grayson pick out of it every couple hours.  Complete lifesaver!  He loved this and it was fun for all of us to see him open his surprises.  Both boys were absolute champs in the car the whole way.  They slept, chattered with each other, showed George the windmills, and just watched out the windows while Zac and I visited.  It was such an enjoyable trip!

Our first stop of the day was in Boardman for lunch.  It's a hole in the wall town but has a great little diner that the guys loved.  We got back on the road and didn't stop again till Multnomah Falls.  It was a little chilly, but nothing jackets didn't help.  The boys loved being out of the car and we love the Falls.  Usually we hike to the top, but decided against it with the wind & two little guys.  Next time for sure.  Grayson was pretty excited to get to our next stop, but talked about the "giant waterfall" for a while after that.

We headed the rest of the way into Portland which had our next stop...the zoo!  We love the Portland zoo-it's quite larger & more intense than Boise-and it was a perfect day.  We couldn't have asked for better weather.  About 70 degrees and just beautiful. Thanks to our great friends Jill & Justin, we also had a double stroller which helped enormously.  Although one boy usually wanted to walk, be held, be out, etc., it was nice to carry the other kid & all our stuff!  I totally slacked in the animal picture taking department...I'm not really into that, apparently.  (:  Actually, I slacked in the picture department all week-I guess we'll have to keep the memories in our heads!  The zoo was great & the boys were fun.  Grayson was a little leery of the alligators because Grandpa Alan teases him their are alligators in his storage room...but I told him to take a picture touching the glass & to tell Gpa Alan that the alligators are NOT in his storage room!  He liked that idea.  Our favorite animals were the tigers, elephant, giraffes, sea lions, alligators, penguins (and exhibit), and the bears.  We stayed for a few hours and then headed out.  At this point we were all getting a little antsy to be out of the car for a while.  We got gas & headed to Camas to my Uncle Larry and Aunt Laurie's house.  We got to their beautiful home just as the boys were hitting their wall.  I seriously can't believe what great little travelers they were!  I was so thankful and Zac and I had a lot of opportunities to visit, laugh, and enjoy getting away.

Larry & Laurie were totally great hosts.  They had yummy dinner, delicious desserts (the best caramel apples I've ever had), and we had lots of great conversation.  We bathed the boys & dressed them in their matching glow-in-the-dark skeleton jammies (so dang cute!) and did Gray's nebulizer treatment, which impressed them all.  Then the baby went to bed and we visited some more.  We felt completely loved & comfortable in their home and their kids are FABULOUS with Grayson and Beckham.  So so glad we decided to split up our journey and take a night in Portland with their adorable family.

Sunday (17th) we got up and had a wonderful breakfast (evil steve's-yummy!) and got packed up again at a pretty leisurely pace since their church didn't start till 1:00.  We just love their family & appreciated getting to know them better-especially Zac, who came away with a greater love for L&L and kids.  We got going on our way when they left for church and made our journey to Seaside, which was our week long destination. 

It took about an hour and a half to get there and again the boys were awesome and just napped the whole way.  We got to the resort where we'd be staying (thanks to another set of friends) and it was awesome!  Totally beautiful, gorgeous weather, and an awesome place.  We had a 2 bathroom, 2 bedroom, full living room & kitchen condo all to ourselves.  Fireplace in the main room, gorgeous view of the ocean...simply relaxing and amazing!  The smells, sounds, and seeing the ocean so close just does something to me.  Totally relaxes me.  Zac and I both had to bring our work with us, of course, but working on the beach beats working at home any day! (:  At least for a week or so...

We unpacked, let the boys stretch out, fixed something to eat, and then bundled up to go out to the beach for a few minutes.  Zac was absolutely giddy about letting Grayson see the ocean for the first time as it is one of Zac's favorite places.  It was quite a bit cooler so we were all bundled up and only stayed out for a few minutes since the sun was almost completely set.  It was awesome though.  The boys laughed about the wind-especially Beckham-and Grayson was leery about getting too close to the water, but Zac picked him up and took him out there to tell him about it.  He was pretty excited at the thought of building sand castles the next day!

We got back inside and Grayson pooped on the toilet for the first time ever!  So, he got to go to the vending machine and pick out a candy bar.  He was pretty excited.  Unfortunately it didn't happen again on our trip, but at least now we know he can do it! (:  Got the boys to bed and cuddled with Zac.  2 great days to start our trip!