Family Vacay

So the family came to visit for a week. And I mean the WHOLE family. Mom, Dad, Sister and her family, and Brother and his wife. We spent a week in a beach house on the Oregon coast (which has quickly become my favorite place on earth) and the last night they were in town we spent in Portland.

I was worried at first that with 9 people in one house for an entire week, albeit a very large house, we'd revert to our childhood road trip days. That we'd end up in the car with my finger 1 millimeter away from my brother's face taunting "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you" until he cried, while my sister read every road sign we passed aloud and my mom threatened for the 200th time that she would not hesitate to "pull this car over and spank you all".

Apparently we do grow up at some point. We had a blast! We ate, read, we played games, flew kites, went wine tasting, hit the casino, ate more, visited the aquarium, shopped, slept in, played on the beach and had an all around amazing week!

Nelson!!

My little bro and his wife. Aren't they adorable?!

My niece and her beatles shirt she insists on wearing 3 times a week

Our view!

My older sister and her hubby

I took a lot of pics since I couldn't wine taste

Aren't we a classy couple :)

Our house is the big brown one with the roof deck.

Dad attempting to fly a kite

low tide

Mom enjoying the view 

Weekend Getaway... and a lantern

As promised here, this post is to fill you in on our crazy awesome weekend in Lincoln City, Oregon about a week ago. LC is only about an hours drive from our house so we snuck outta work a smidge early on Friday and headed to the coast.


We checked in to our sweet suite at Beachfront Manor complete with unbelievable views of the pacific ocean and a hot tub on the balcony overlooking the water. We were hoping to see a storm as we've heard it's quite an amazing sight, but the weekend was clear and sunny which totally worked too. We really enjoyed getting to stroll along the beach.






Great views from our balcony





I love how well you can still see the moon in the mornings!




I could wake up to this forever




Tree turned beach seating



After breakfast Sat. morning we set out down Highway 101 about 15 min. to Depoe Bay in hopes of seeing a whale. Totally didn't happen. I'm sure if we peered through binoculars for 5 hours we might have spotted one, but we both have attention spans of about 20 min for that kind of thing. Instead we walked around town taking pics of the insane waves crashing against the rocks and swung by Fuddy Duddy Fudge and left with over a pound of fudge.  (That alone made the day successful in my book!)



The spouting horn would always leave a rainbow after the spray


We headed to the Jennifer Sears Glass Studio and worked with a glass artist to blow our own glass bowl. We got to do quite a bit of the work considering how dangerous putting two goofballs like us around 2,000 degree heat and sharp objects. Now that I think about it, I'm not only surprised we made it home with a cool glass bowl, I'm shocked we have all of our fingers intact. 




our color selection





Making the opening of the bowl. I don't know how she didn't burn her hands off!





The finished product in our house!



We finished glassblowing more quickly that we'd expected so we stopped at a cute antique store to kill some time before dinner. As soon as the little bell dinged as we entered the old house- turned- antique shop, Daniel instantly regretted suggesting the idea. My eyes were the size of golf balls. You see I've never been in an antique store before - I was under the assumption that it was a bunch of old broken crap mixed with mothballs and weird dishes. I was only partially right. There were a lot of weird dishes.

I've mentioned that I wanted to purchase less things for the sake of filling space and start purchasing only things I love, that represent us, that have a story. So when I saw this I fell in love.

Not only would it look great in our house but no matter where in the world we end up 30 years from now, this Embury lantern made between 1920 and 1952 will be the fun "find" from our weekend adventure. Not to mention it's a City of Portland marked lantern!!

After our fabulous find, we headed to Humble Pie, home of the best pizza I've had since moving to Oregon. It's a small, quirky restaurant with only 3 dining tables. You get a discount ($1 off I think) for every item of tie-dye you are wearing (we paid full price), and they have games and books for you to enjoy while you wait  for your pie. Oh- and did I mention they sell giant cream puffs?!?!? Yeah, like bigger than softball sized cream puffs. So. So. Good.  

It was glorious!

We had an amazing time and can't wait to go on our next Oregon weekend adventure....skiing!