Jamie was asked to teach a class and help another trainer with another class on the coast recently. Jamie invited us to go with him and play at the beach while he was working. While driving over, there were gray clouds and rain drops, and I thought we were going to have a typical Oregon beach trip, cold, rainy, and windy. The next day, the weather was perfect. The exception to the beach trips I have been on in Oregon. The sky had slight cloud cover, almost no wind, the slightest of breeze, and no sweatshirt needed. You can't get a better beach day, except maybe warmer weather, but, you can't have everything.
The five of us were going to spend the day on the beach. That was the plan. I brought bread, jam and drinks with us, so no need to go back to the room. That was until we went down to the water. Being Oregon, we were walked down to the sand prepared with our jackets. We took them off almost right away. When it was time to go down to the water, I pile our jackets on out supplies. After being at the water for some time, I turned to check on our stuff, and there were several birds around it. I gathered everyone and we hiked back to our things to find the birds had found the bread, under the jackets and were eating it. There went my great plan, and lunch. I let the kids throw the whole loaf to the seagulls, which they thought was great fun. Then we gathered what was left of our things, and hiked up to the room to my keys and wallet, and we went and got lunch. We ate it on the back porch of the hotel. It was a fun picnic and I don't think anyone cared.
We switched out supplies again, and headed back do the beach.
JJ declared the sand as "the beach" and the ocean wasn't. While we were at the waters edge, he would say he wanted to go to the beach, meaning he wanted to play in the sand. We bought the kids beach shoes, and of course, the boys wanted shoes with characters from the movie "Cars." JJ thought they made great cars for driving around, and Riley quickly followed his lead. Andrea wanted to make a big, long monster. But, every time she made a little progress, the boys did the boy thing, and stomped on it. Samantha just wanted to go back down to the water.
The girls were quick to play in the water, getting wet up past their knees, in time. I held hands with the boys and showed them how to have fun running from the waves and sometimes letting the water crash on their feet. Riley was soon splashing and running in the water, like the girls. JJ, a little more cautious, took a bit longer, but soon joined them. All of us spent time getting cold feet, splashing, and running from waves.
But, alas, all good things come to an end. JJ was running from a wave and tripped. The wave wasn't large, but washed over him a bit. I think it scared him a little. He didn't get to wet, but he was done. Then it was all I could do to keep him near us, and not running back up to play at the "beach."
Some older ladies were walking along the beach and were watching Riley. They thought he was funny, the way he played in the water, was running from wave, and splashing around, having a great time. They came over to talk to me and tell me how they enjoyed watching him. And then, a wave came up and knocked Riley over. He was soaked from the armpits down.
Then it was back to the "beach" for more playing in the sand and drying off. The next day we went to the Hatfield Marine Science Center. The kids were able to see a lot of fish, and see a few science-y things. Then we tried to go to the beach somewhere else, but it was very windy, so we didn't stay long. We had a great trip though, and the kids keep asking to go back.
Ahh, Angry Birds. Has your household caught the craze too? Samantha wanted an Angry Birds party for her birthday this year. I thought, how am I going to pull this off? And so I thought. And searched my crafty blogs. Samantha also wanted a pinata. The pinata would be easy, but what about the rest. I did an Angry Bird search on one of my favorite sites, (One Pretty Thing)and found a bunch of crafty things people had done, one being directions and patterns for making your own Angry Birds (Red Angry Bird Pattern). I thought this would be fun, but what to do with them. Then I thought, why not play a real life Angry Birds? First it was going to be to knock over some structures, but then thought, you have to have pigs. And so, I painted some pigs and made a few birds.
The kids took turns. I built a structure, then Samantha tried to knock it down. After she did, she built the next structure for the next in line, and repeat, each building for the next in line. It was a huge hit. The only downside was we ended up playing inside, because it was a bit wet outside. But even being inside was fun. My house seemed to be built just for throwing Angry Birds. 
