Beach & Oregon Coast Aquarium

A few weeks ago, the last weekend of July, David had just gotten home from being gone all week at our church district's kids' camp (little kids). His manager at Columbia had so kindly given him Sat off too, so he could "recoup" from being gone all week. Since he was off, we decided to head to the beach for the weekend. I know, it seems like we go a lot, but David had to be back for church, so we couldn't go to Seattle like we had wanted to originally...but that's ok because we had some good family getaway time, which is all that matters. We were SO blessed by someone David knows that was kind to let us rent their beach house for the weekend, and at a very reasonable price, which was an even bigger blessing. We got there a little later Fri evening than we wanted to, due to other circumstances, but we got there with enough time for Hannah to explore the house (informing us she really liked it even before she got inside), and get settled before putting the kids in bed. It was nice for David and I to have time to just sit and relax and get caught up on the week without having the distractions of home and things to do. Saturday was cool and drizzly, so David stayed at the house with the kids and I went down the street to a fun scrapbook store I like to hit when we're there. Then we just hung out and I scrapbooked while the kids were napping. Later that afternoon we checked out the outlet mall for any possible good deals, came back for dinner and David took Hannah down to the beach to attempt to fly a kite she'd been anxious to all day, but couldn't due to lack of wind. One pic you'll see from Sat is Hannah laying on the couch not looking too happy - this was because she had been going up and down the stairs and fell down about 3-4 and hit her face on the floor, resulting in a nice purple bruise. Sunday, David went back for church while the kids and I hung out at the house (we didn't have to worry about a check out time) and played. The whole weekend was overcast, cool and drizzly, so we didn't go out on the beach much at all. After David returned, we packed up and headed to Newport to the OR Coast Aquarium - Hannah's first time there. We were hoping to meet up with friends there that had been camping in Newport, but they were leaving just as we were arriving. Hannah really enjoyed the aquarium. The display they have right now is called "Oddwater" with lots of really unique marine life, which you'll see in the pics. Then we headed for home through Corvallis, stopping in Albany for dinner to meet Ben, Ruth & Breanna, who were headed home to Newport. We arrived home about 9, tired, but very much relaxed from a much needed family getaway/downtime.