The Adventures of Danifer + Three: Family Vacation Part I - Seaside

Fog rolling in at Cannon Beach

After a slight delay, I officially have our first family vacation recap! It was quite the adventure, but we survived without any major meltdowns or injuries.

While we packed for the worse (new toys, snacks, new types snacks, books, crayons, other new distractions, etc.), we actually had a very good first flight. We had to break out a few bribe snacks, but surprisingly the girls slept for about 1/3 of the 3.5 hour flight which gave us a few moments to relax. On our return flight from Seattle, we didn't have the same luck with sleeping however we did sit next to the same couple that we did on the way there. It was a very strange coincidence, but since they loved playing with the girls it worked out perfectly!

After arriving at the Seattle airport, we headed south / southwest towards Cannon Beach, Oregon. First stop: Haystack Rock.

The girls loved the beach and playing in the sand. I am pretty sure finding random sticks and digging holes was the highlight of their trip. Glad we decided to bring the heavy sweatshirts since the weather was at least 10 degrees cooler at the beach than the town area. Honestly, the girls were so excited to see the beach, I don't even think they noticed. They did notice the water temperature though...

Lucy (with Jennifer) was initially very excited to play in the water...she quickly realized this was not the warmth of the bath. Emily on the other hand, was completely content to just have me hold her close to it...no reason to get in. She might have been on to something.

The following day, we had our first experience of the girls waking up on Central Time while we were on the west coast. This was not enjoyable. Most days Emily started waking up at 3:30am and if we were lucky, we could get her to go back to sleep until 5:30am. The first day in Seaside (just north of Cannon Beach), we had to wait at our hotel until a place opened for breakfast. Surprisingly, not a lot of people eat breakfast at 7am in a beach town.

On the positive side, we did discover during breakfast that Emily likes to eat crayons. Up until this point, she has been very good about coloring without causing any destruction, but something about the blue crayon must have looked appetizing. Almost 3 weeks later, she still tries to eat most crayons when coloring. This could get interesting.

While walking along the boardwalk, we realized that the Hood to Coast relay event (that one of Jennifer's friends was running in) was ending in Seaside.

Note: Teams of 8-12 relay race 199 miles from Mount Hood to Seaside. The top team finished in 17 hours and 14 minutes!

Through a set of random decisions, we actually ended up going from Seaside to Hood over the course of 1.5 days. A reverse relay race...minus the running, hotels and vans packed with sweaty runners. I couldn't have been happier with how this trip turned out. As you will see, Oregon is a great place with lots to variety offer.

The sky started to clear up, so we decided we should try to go back to Cannon Beach to eat lunch and visit Haystack Rock one last time before heading to Portland. Overall, the town of Cannon Beach is very nice. A little touristy, but I can see why people would spend long weekends on the beach.

I think we ended up making the right decision to return for a second visit, the weather was great. Since the tide was still out, we were actually able to walk up to the rocks and see the various marine life that was stuck from the night before. Once we arrived at the Haystack, we noticed a temporary observatory setup to view Tufted Puffin. These birds migrate to the Haystack each year while spending a majority of their life in the ocean.