The Oregon Coast

We finally made it to our main destination the Oregon Coast.  We stayed in Newport for two days.  Wednesday August 22 was spent on the beach.

This was the first time Emily and Colby had seen the ocean and they loved it.  As we were looking out over this lookout, we could see whales surfacing just beyond those rock.  It was cool to watch because you could see them come up and blow water out their spouts and then go back in the water.

We went to Otter Rock to explore the tide pools during the morning low tide:

Emily and Colby had a blast running from pool to pool seeing all of the sea creatures they could find.  The whole trip Emily kept asking when we were going to see the starfish in Oregon and finally we found some.  We saw a lot of starfish, some sea urchins, little fish, some little crabs, and many creatures that I don't know the name of.  It was so much fun exploring.  Colby and Emily also had a good time gathering shells.  Emily filled her bucket full of colorful shells and we took them home with us to remember the coast.

Emily even caught herself a huge starfish!  We found this pool that a lot of starfish were in and some of the starfish were not connected to the rock wall so you could grab them and pick them up.  Russell and Emily both caught one and had to show them off.  Emily wanted to take hers home but I told her we couldn't.

While at Otter Rock, we also saw what's called the Devil's Punchbowl:

The inside of this rock formation is only available to see during low tide.  Otherwise it is under water.  We saw even more starfish and some other kids showed us how to find little crabs by digging in the wet sand.  We had to be careful though because even though they were little, the crabs could pinch really hard!  Inside the Punchbowl the wind was blowing so hard and it was so cold!  Newport was only between 65 and 75 degrees so I was freezing all of the time but the wind just added to it.  We could see the tide was starting to come back in so we pet the starfish one more time before heading back up to the car.

We went back to the hotel to eat lunch and take a nap while it warmed up a little outside.  Then we went to South Beach to go swimming in the ocean.

Emily loved the ocean!  Despite the cold temperature of the water, she ran right in and chased Russell around the water.  She played for quite a while without mentioning the cold.  Colby on the other had was not so sure about the water.  He wanted to play with Sister and Dad so bad that he would run down to the water but every time he saw a wave coming toward his feet, he would turn around and run the other way before the water could get him.  Colby loved playing in the sand though and so did Emily.

We built the coolest sand castle village while we were on the beach.  Some ladies even took a picture of it when they walked by.  We should have built it a little further up on the beach though because a little while after we finished building it, a huge wave came up and demolished it!  We were sad but we were also getting ready to leave so it wasn't that big of a deal.

I love this picture of me and my boy walking along the sandy beach.  I love how the waves on the ocean add to it too.

Russell got a little daring and went chest deep into the freezing water.  He said it took his breath away every time a cold wave hit him.  The longer we stayed the braver Colby got too.  He finally did go walking in the ocean by himself.

The ocean and the beach was so fun to play on.  After our sand castle got demolished, we decided it was time to head home.  We were all freezing by then.  We weren't ready to get out of our swimming suits yet so when we got back to the hotel, we decided to go swimming in a heated pool.  We swam for about an hour when we realized we were hungry.  We got cleaned up and went to Mo's restaurant for dinner.  We had some really good clam chowder and other fresh seafood.  It was so good. 

Just outside of Mo's was this awesome picture of whales painted on the wall of the building across the street.  I thought it was amazing and it looks so real.  We walked along the Newport bay for a while and saw some people fishing for crabs off the pier.  We could also see all of the boats coming in and docking in the bay.  It was a really adventurous day on the coast.