"As I gaze upon the sea...

...all the old romantic legends, all my dreams, come back to me.” Wrote Henry Wadworth Longfellow. Above, is a picture from the back window of the beach house.
One of the great things about spending time on the Oregon Coast with Lisa's family, is that we stay for a week. That leaves plenty of time for gazing upon the sea. The adults get to relax and unwind in the beach house, while the kids get to fill their pockets with shells and all kinds of stinky beach junk. They explored the tide pools, played in the sand, and spent hours up in the sandy cliffs. We celebrated our nephew, Dylan's, 5th birthday by taking a trip to the aquarium in Newport -- the kids seems to really appreciate it and enjoyed seeing the cool critters...like these crazy spider crabs -- YUCK! Tiffany was commissioned with booking our accomodations. She did a great job; landing us a place right on the cliffs with our own backyard, private beach access, and a hot tub looking out on the ocean. (It's the BIG one on the right.)
Over the weekend we were there, the parking lot of the local casino was filled with participants for a BBQ competition. We had fun walking the little BBQ tent city, filling our bellies, listening to live music, and even watching world famous competitive eating champion, Joey Chesnut consume more than 10 lbs. of ribs in 12 minutes. Next the city hosted a safety fair with exhibits for the kids to learn about emergency services, home fire safety, and poison control and stuff. They also got to play on the emergency response vehicles like the fire engine and jetskis. Our time at the beach house was grand. But, you know what they say... all good things come to an end.