Oregon Part 3

The kids had been asking to play in the sand, so on Wednesday morning we headed down to Lake Marie.  The lake was much warmer than the ocean and we had the beach all to ourselves.  The first order of business was to build a sandcastle.  Then Nate informed us that once you build a sandcastle, you have to destroy it.  Apparently that's the whole reason for building it in the first place.  Jonah loved wading in the water and looking for seashells.  He actually found some too.  He also had a lot of fun chasing water skeeters.  The girls preferred to stay on the beach and play in the sand.  

Beautiful Lake Marie

Lilly & Jonah working on the sand castle.

The proud castle-builders and their finished product.  I know it's not fancy, but we don't exactly have a lot of experience with sand castles. :)

The inevitable destruction of the castle. 

Jonah tried unsuccessfully to defend his beloved creation.

We went back to camp to get everyone cleaned up.  It's a good thing they had showers or we would have never gotten all of the sand off everyone!  We made lunch and had a nice afternoon nap.  (I have to admit that taking a nap every afternoon was one of my favorite things about this trip!)  

After our nap we headed over to the lighthouse museum.  We were going to do the tour so that the kids could climb up into the lighthouse, but you have to pay for the tour and they only accept cash.  We'd just used up the last of our cash the day before.  So we were content to simply walk through the museum.  It was neat to learn about the lighthouse.  They had some of the rooms done up like they were when the coast guard used the house and we got to see some of their uniforms and gear.  

After the lighthouse museum we decided to drive to Florence.  We walked around and looked in the shops, picked up a few more fun souvenirs, and had some delicious ice cream.    

The kids each got to pick out a stuffed animal from the Funky Monkey toy shop.  Jonah chose a shark, Lilly chose an octopus, and Jayne chose a sea turtle.  Lilly named her octopus Oregonia so that she could remember where she got her from. 

Lilly wanted her picture taken in this chair inside one of the shops. 

And of course Jayne had to sit in the chair too!

 

By the time we got back to camp it was starting to get late.  We had some dinner and got everyone in their pajamas.  Then we decided to head down to the lighthouse one last time and watch the sunset over the ocean. 

I didn't tell them to salute.  I think they wanted to pretend to be members of the coast guard. 

The Umpqua River Lighthouse

After much begging and pleading, we finally managed to scrounge up a couple of quarters so the kids could look through the binoculars. 

On Thursday we woke up, packed up, and headed out.   We split the drive home into two days because 15 hours in the car was just too much.  We spent Thursday night at a hotel in Boise, Idaho.  About halfway across Oregon our A/C in the car decided not to work for us anymore.  So we had a long, hot, windy (because we had to have the windows down), drive home.  The highlight for the kids was when we stopped at a park right outside of Burns, OR.  It had two enormous slides!  Even Jayne went straight for them and I had to follow her.  Not because she was scared, but because the ladders going up to these slides were the really skinny kind and I was worried she might fall.  But she did great.  Me....not so much. I didn't fall or anything, but I was not too happy to be up that high on what felt like a rickety structure.  

We didn't get to the hotel until around 8pm.  Nate kept saying, "We should just keep going.  It's only 5 more hours!"  But to me and the kids, 5 more hours was out of the question.  I think all four of us were done for the day.  We arrived home around 2:00 on Friday afternoon. 

Well, that about wraps up our trip. We had such a great time and made so many fun memories!  We're already trying to decide what adventure we should go on next!