Day 9 2016

This morning we woke up to this lovely guest on our balcony!  Although I suspect that she got irritated with me when I wouldn't share my HoneyNut Cheerios with her, so she moved on.  We started our day with a quick little exploration of the beach in front of our hotel.  It was a bit warmer than it had been the night before, and was beautiful.  But then again, I feel that way about most beaches :).  

Rebekah walked in the water and I got my toes wet.  It actually was not as cold as I thought it would be, but don't get me wrong, it still wasn't warm enough for swimming!

This was a pretty good sized crab shell.  These discoveries we keep making are so cool!

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We spent a good bit of the afternoon driving.  We stopped at a little town for a lite lunch.  There was a neat little beach area, but honestly I was not feeling great at that time, so I let the others out to go walk it.  Plus, it was raining and chilly, so I opted to read a book in the van ;).

This is Cannon Beach and the rock behind the kids is called the Haystack (235 ft.).

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When we arrived at the hotel, we were all feeling the need for personal space it seemed like.  Thankfully, this was a hotel where Harvey had booked two adjoining rooms.  We all just chilled for a little bit, which was nice.  After some down time, we walked to dinner.  It was a great family seafood restaurant, but what was so nice is that most of the seafood was local. Yum!  They boasted of their homemade clam chowder and peanut butter pie, among some other great entrees.  None of it disappointed! An interesting fact we found out from our waitress was that there is no sales tax in Oregon except on hotels, cigarettes, and, wait for it...marijuana.  Crazy.

We walked along the boardwalk and then the beach in front of our hotel.  This statue marks the end of the Lewis & Clark Trail.  Apparently Lewis & Clark, along with their team, boiled water twenty four hours a day for two months at this beach to get the salt to be able to preserve their meat for their trip home. They used the five largest pots that they could find. So interesting!  

While there, we met a nice couple from Canada.  Jonathan was full of himself and showed them how to "dab" and we had to explain to them that Cam Newton is really a nice guy and not as arrogant as they thought he was ;).  Jonathan also kept waving to everyone who drove by saying, "Hi Chris Paul!"  He was hilarious. 

Harvey took this photo while we were walking on the beach. We loved the lighting in it.  The beach and sky were beautiful.  We saw so many broken sand dollars!  We did not see hardly any seashells, but many, many broken sand dollars.

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When we got back to the hotel, Harvey took the kids swimming and I went to the laundry room to wash jeans.  We basically each brought five changes of clothes, plus the pants we wore on the plane.  Because we have had some chilly & rainy weather, we have worn pants more since our laundry day.  Logistically, packing for this trip was very different.  Everyone had a carry-on bag and a suitcase.  We checked one big suitcase.  In that suitcase are all of our toiletries, one air mattress, one set of sheets, and one blanket.  I brought clothes that could be layered.  I did not pack a hair dryer to save space.  Hotel hair dryers do not have as much as power as mine (I have some pretty thick hair and have a high powered dryer :), but I have made it work.  Also, Rebekah and I brought only one flat iron to share.  I did not pack hardly any jewelry or accessories, which is not very exciting, but no big deal really.  When we got to California, we went to a Target and bought some snacks & paper towels for the car, along with water bottles for us and Coke Zero for Harvey.  I stocked our glove box with wipes, band aids, & tissues.  I brought cough medicine with us in the big suitcase, as a couple of kids were getting over coughs.  I also brought some essential oils and a small diffuser. I have an ItWorks oil called Chill that is smells good and Rebekah insists helps Elizabeth go to sleep better :).  I also brought a small set of Young Living oils that includes Lavendar, which we have used for some cuts and bug bites.  I have a stress free oil mix and an ear mix that I used on Elizabeth when her ears were hurting after the plane trip.  I keep peppermint oil with me as well for headaches and tummy aches.  It probably sounds crazy to some, but it seems to work for us.  

Now back to our story...sorry if I bored anyone to tears!  While I was in the laundry room, I heard a loud boom.  It startled me, so I texted Trey who was in the room working on summer school.  He thought it was thunder.  Later, a maintenance man saw Harvey and told him to make sure he wore shoes, that there was blood in the halls. We found out the next morning that a man had busted through a picture in his room (right by the laundry room where I was sitting), shattering glass everywhere.  He went running through the hotel and the police had to taze him twice and then took him to jail.  This served as another reminder of God's protection for our family.