We celebrated the 20th anniversary of our wedding and the founding of our family with a week in beautiful Newport, Oregon.
We rented a house across the street from the beach. It was a great home base for exploring and a cozy spot to watch movies, catch a little March Madness and read.
We spent Tuesday morning at the Oregon Aquarium and enjoyed all the sea creatures. Favorite animals were the otters, the seals, the octopus and the jellyfish.
On Wednesday we explored the tide pools at the Yaquina Head natural area. The rocks and the pools between the rocks were crammed with sea urchins, anemones, mussels, barnacles, crabs and fish. We also saw many harbor seals and murres.
Abe especially liked looking for star fish.
It was easy to spot sea glass on the black cobble beach. Helen's handful shows the variety of colors we found.
This is the Yaquina Head lighthouse. It was whale watching week and the lighthouse is a popular spot to look for whales. Every Spring thousands of whales migrate up the coast on their way from Mexico to Alaska. We couldn't say with confidence that we saw any whales this day, but on a clear day we stopped at the whale watching center in Depoe Bay and all of us saw several whales spouting.
On Thursday we drove to the Drift Creek Falls trail. Getting to the trail meant a 10 mile drive on a forest service road-- narrow and twisty, but a least it was paved. The hike through a beautiful forest was well worth the drive. At the end of the hike, a 240 foot suspension bridge crossed over the falls.
The bridge was almost more impressive than the waterfall. Here's a photo of Helen at the bottom of the hike. You can see the bridge in the top right of the photo.
We spent a little time at the harbor in Newport. It's a busy fishing port. In the background is a photo of the Yaquina Bay bridge. One morning we ran from our house, over the bridge and then home again. We watched the sea lions swim into the bay as we stood on top of the bridge.
We came to the harbor to see the sea lions up close. Dozens of them rest on special docks built just for them. They quarrel loudly with each other as they jockey for position on the docks.
We celebrated Gibson's 8th birthday on Thursday. He asked for a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting and Gushers on top. Becky put him in charge of decorating the cake and he had fun arranging the candy on top.
Gibson is a delightful 8 year old! He likes learning, building, reading, serving, playing. Sofi finally talked him in to reading the Harry Potter series and he is reading at a mad pace-- he's already on book 4!
It was a lovely week-- a perfect mix of relaxing and busyness with lots of beach time mixed in. This is a photo of Brandan and Gibson flying a kite. We were all a little sad to leave the beach, but Brandan and Becky were also excited because they had one more surprise in store. . .
. . .a detour on the way home to a tree house resort. The resort is part camping/part motel. Yes, we slept in a treehouse. This is a photo of the treehouse we stayed in, named the Majestree (the owner loves tree puns.) It's 47 feet off the ground. It slept 6, had a bathroom, a mini fridge and a microwave. Sofi was ready to move in permanently.
The resort is very unique with lots of treehouses, ladders, swinging bridges and rope swings and we could spend a long time describing the details. We'll settle with posting photos of Sofi showing the route we took to get to our treehouse. It starts with a trip up 3 flights of stairs. Sofi is sitting at the bottom of the first staircase.
Here she is on the second.
And here's the third.
The third staircase ended on a platform. We walked across to a second platform on a swinging bridge.
A second swinging bridge led to a deck below our treehouse. You can see the yellow Majestree sign behind Sofi.
We went up one more flight of stairs. . .
. . .and arrived at our treehouse!
There was one more flight of steep stairs inside the treehouse that led to a loft. Two queen size beds were in the loft. The main area of the treehouse had another queen size bed, a small table and chairs, the tiny kitchenette and the bathroom. The treehouse was very snug and clean. It moved and flexed as the tree moved in the wind. We only experienced light wind so the movement was pleasant, not scary.
Although the route described above was the only way for people to get to our treehouse, we could haul our luggage straight to our front porch using a rope and pulley from the parking area.
The resort had plenty of outdoor activities, including this zipline. We also swung on a Tarzan swing, played disc golf, horseshoes and pool.
We ended our week with a big event-- Gibson's baptism. Gibson anticipated this day for a long time. Brandan baptized and confirmed Gibson. Our stake Primary presidency organized the baptism program. Sofi gave a talk on baptism and Abe said the opening prayer.
Brandan's parents let us know Friday morning that they were planning on coming to the baptism. Linda has been undergoing chemo and did not expect to feel like a long drive. However, she decided if they took their time driving, she could make the trip. We were thankful for their sacrifice and happy to spend the weekend together.
