Spring Break 2013!
I really wasn’t sure what to title this post. I wanted to call it “My first paid vacation as a stay at home mom” but that just seemed to be a bit long winded. Instead, let’s call it what it was, our first official spring break trip. And, where did we go, you might we wondering???? Cannon Beach in Oregon – home of the cannon museum, which is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday – the only full days of our trip. Lesson #1, when selling your kids on a destination, always make sure that if there is a particular thing you want to see, find out the times when it will be available to be seen. That caught us not once, but twice this trip, both times involving cannons, go figure. We also visited Tillamook, Oregon, (home of my favorite cheese and ice cream) on the way to a night in Portland, Oregon. Can I tell you how fun the Oregon Zoo is? Totally cool, even in the rain.
Anyway, our trip began Monday, April 1st and life played a cruel joke on me. For the months of January through March, I have been healthy, which is good because the rest of my family has been trading all sorts of colds. Case in point, Joel had just come off his antibiotic for bronchitis, Nicholas was a couple of days into his antibiotic for his sinus infection and Dexter had been rushed to the walk-in clinic Saturday night, one hour before it closed, to be diagnosed with an ear infection. It seems as though my luck had just run out. That Sunday was Easter and oh, what an absolutely beautiful day. The sun was out, the day was warm, my mom fed us a wonderful Easter meal, I ran up and down the street being chased by two boys on bikes and then Nicholas sneezed into my face. About two hours later, around 5pm as I was fixing dinner, I began to sneeze. An hour later, I had a Kleenex shoved up my nose to prevent it from running all over my face as I finished up the packing and loading of the van. The next morning, I looked like Rudolf, the red nosed reindeer. What the Heck! It was like a scene out of the movie Contagion. I finally get a vacation and I’m packing extra Kleenex boxes into the car. Life is just not fair sometimes. However, some planets must have been in alignment because we actually got out of the house on schedule, around 9:15 am. The flip side to this amazement was that our first stop was the walk-in clinic for Joel and Nicky, who had both taken turns for the worse. The next 1.5 hours were spent there, seeing doctors and getting drugs. Drugs always make road trips better, right?
So, in the end, we didn’t leave Everett until 10:45am and thus our first stop was axed from the schedule (the Olympia Children’s Museum). Instead, we stopped just outside the Joint Base Lewis/McCord base to get lunch. The boys saw so many people in uniform (and we had passed some tanks and artillery pieces outside the base museum along the freeway) and we had many conversations about war after that. It was a long haul to Long Beach with Nicky getting tired of being in the car. We found out how tired when he unbuckled himself from his car-seat before the car had come to a complete stop outside a random kids park we found along the way. Everyone, except the girl with the red nose, had a fantastic time running out some wiggles. We found out how cool a skateboard park could be without skateboards. What’s a little dirt on your pants? The Kite Museum in Long Beach was our next stop. We got there 15 minutes before closing and rushed to make kites with boys who were tired and irritated. It was just a tad difficult waking the boys up and getting them cheerful enough to make a kit but Nicky took on the challenge. Dexter declined to participate. Let us just say that my kite is a flier. The Nicky/Joel kite wants to fly but can’t seem to get much air time (in my defense, Nic insisted on positioning the curved strut horizontally which didn’t do much for the aerodynamic stability).
Dinner in Astoria (pizza – good, old fashioned grease soaked pizza) and finally, we arrived at the Surf Sand resort in Cannon Beach. Oh, our room was amazing and looked out over the beach and Haystack rock. Joel and I had a separate bedroom and Nicky and Dexter bunked on the pull out couch in the living room. After being shut up in our room as we waited for the boys to fall asleep that first night, I concocted a better night time attack plan that had the boys falling asleep in our room while we watched the campfires outside, listened to the waves crash, and chatted. Then, I would transfer them back to the couch mattress placed on the floor so that Nicholas would stop rolling out of bed in the night. It worked wonderfully and Joel and I really had a chance to reconnect those nights. It’s nice to think that after 7 years of marriage, we can still have a great time talking to one another. I smile just thinking about it.
Our first full day in town was a gray and colder day. We headed to Ecola State Park to look at tide pools and shovel some sand around. We suited up in our rain gear and boots and down to the beach we went. All was going ok until Nicky stepped into too deep water and one soaked foot emerged, attached to a very upset boy. I had found a starfish by accident and was so excited to share my discovery with others, that I forgot to help Joel bring the boys over to me. Oops. Then Dexter got his hands sandy and wet after catching himself from falling over and he had a small meltdown. Thank goodness we had packed extra socks and a towel with us. Those two items enabled us to stay on the beach for another 1/2 hour or so. There was also the small disconnect that the boys were planning on digging for pirate gold and building sand castles, while we thought we were there to look at the tide pools. It didn’t help that we had accidentally scared the boys with talks of being very careful when the tide comes in. We forgot to explicitly explain what a tide was, and that a wave was not something to fear. Oops. Joel headed back up to the van with the boys to eat our packed lunch and track me by binoculars while I headed to some more tide pools for a looksie. It was nice being by myself for a bit. Then it was back to the van and off we went to Costco, then Fred Meyer, in search of new rain boots for the boys. We did not want a repeat of water leakage into a boot or fights over who got to wear the new pair of boots so in the end, I bought two new pairs of monster truck rain boots. I just can’t help myself sometimes….
Because of this side trip, we didn’t make it to Fort Stevens State Park until a bit later in the afternoon. We’d been talking up the Fort with its cannons for weeks and the boys were excited to see them. The tide was out so our first stop was to the see the wreckage of the Peter Iredale. They were not so impressed. What caught their attention and put smiles on their faces was me finding two sticks – one long and one short. They had so much fun running up and down the sand hills carrying these sticks. Boys. We grabbed the kites as well, and took advantage of the steady breeze. It was hard to get the boys to give up their sticks and get back into the van to get to Fort Stevens. Here’s where we failed again. First we stopped at Battery Russell, the closest part of the fort and where we thought there would be cannons. There were just some concrete ruins and a lot of stairs, and the boys were not impressed. We failed to check what time the Fort closed and by the time we showed up, the gate was shut to people coming in. After a day of pushing and new things, this led to a Nicholas melt down. Dexter joined in just because. To make matters worse, they fell asleep in the van on the way back to Cannon Beach. This was bad. We hardly ever eat out and the boys are not restaurant people. We stopped at Safeway so that I could make cheese quesadillas in the microwave for them. I got tasked with waking them up and getting them happy again. Thank God for the 4 chocolate pieces I had stashed in the lunch bag. I had brought one for everyone but when I offered one to Dexter, the “I’m mad” look turned to a “Ha Ha” look and he took two. Little Bugger. That meant I had to give Nicky another one just to be fair. It did the trick though and smiles were restored. It was around 5pm when we got back to the room and by that time, I needed food. Room service, Mickey Mouse Club House and we were back on track.
Sunshine greeted us Wednesday morning and back we headed to Fort Stevens, climbing all around the fort and blowing up the British. Joel taught the boys to sing “The Battle of New Orleans” and that’s why we were focusing on the British as the enemy (supplanting the Germans, and most recently the Pirates). It has since been sung many, many times over the past few weeks. The boys are moving past the toddler attention span and starting to want to see more and understand what they’re seeing, so we got to spend a bit more time exploring and running all over the place. Then, hindsight being favorable, after walking around Cannon Beach and eating at Pig in a Pancake for lunch, we played in the sand near our hotel for the rest of the afternoon. The boys played pirates while first Joel, then I, walked over to Haystack rock to look around. I finally got them to take their boots off and put their toes in the sand when Dexter shouted “I’ve got to pee.” Joel raced back to the room with the boys while I dug for buried plastic pirates. By the time I got back to the room, everyone was in there swimming suits and off we went to take a dip in the hotel pool. A picnic in our room for dinner followed and then new Legos needed to be built. The day was incredible.
Thursday saw us packing up our room and loading our belongings into the van while rain started to come down around. Of course, what follows a good day but a bad day and Nicky was determined to be grumpy. Nothing could cheer him up. Not even an incredible (but not as good as my mom’s) grilled cheese sandwich and ice cream cone at the Tillamook cheese factory. The ice cream was too crunchy. What??? Soft serve vanilla at Mukilteo Beach had won over Tillamook Vanilla Bean ice cream. I rolled over in my grave, but wait, I’m not dead yet. Too pass the drive time away, Nicky slept some on the way to Portland while Dexter happily looked at a Playmobile catalog for nearly 2 hours. We got into Portland around 2pm and headed to the Oregon Zoo with rain coats and umbrellas in hand. What a fantastic zoo, even in the rain. We saw lots of different animals, close up, ranging from cougars, to hippos moving and wiggling their ears, to wet cheetahs, a baby otter and a baby monkey. I think the most impressive though was the male giraffe who definitely felt Spring was in the air, if you get my meaning. While we watched him stay super close to the female giraffe, I wondered if we were going to be having a “how baby giraffes are made” conversation but we moved on before anything more exciting could happen. We knew it was time to go when the boys really started to drag their feet. Six minutes of rush hour traffic and we were at our hotel. The Silver Cloud hotel in Portland is a nice hotel and in a good location for the zoo and children’s museum. We walked to a restaurant for dinner and watched people run up and down the street wearing Urban Running? green t-shirts. It was quite fascinating. Because we were done being good parents for the day, I turned on the TV and the boys and I watched Maine game-wardens on “North Woods Law” on the Animal Planet. The next day, their stories were all about catching poachers. Then we all had an absolutely horrible night’s sleep and I kept waiting with anticipation for day to come.
Up the next morning, Nicky skipped breakfast, a sign for the day? and we headed to the children’s museum in Portland and I have to say, we were not that impressed. The place was packed and I guess the boys are just starting to get a little old for that type of Children’s museum? Out by 11am and off to see my “Aunt” Joanie in Washougal, Washington. A quick lunch at Jack in the Box, where this time Dexter refused to eat. What is up with these kids???? We had such a good time at Joanie’s, working on puzzles, playing with pool balls and running around her house. But alas, at 3pm, we had to head back home for a very rainy drive north. Luckily, dinner at IHOP in Lacy managed to coincide with missing rush hour traffic through Seattle. Dexter crashed a half hour before we got home. Nicky, who through a 1/2 hour fit after leaving Joanie’s house (remembering that he didn’t get a souvenir, except for the tub of pirates, and pirate coins, and new legos, and new cars), peacefully napped for an hour in the car, so he was wide awake and HAPPY when we made home at 8:30pm. We unloaded the van and basically just dumped everything in our hallway to take care of the next day. And, when I say dumped, I mean dumped. Unfortunately for Joel, he went downstairs and on his way through the hallway and tripped over the suitcase I had opened and left on the floor. Oops.
Saturday saw me working on laundry, grocery shopping and getting everything put away from 8am to 7pm at night, with no overtime pay. Boy, I was tired and needed another vacation. All in all, it was a great trip, with much parental learning so that when we do it again, we can do it better. Isn’t that how it usually goes?
Enjoy the photos from the trip!
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April 17th, 2013 at 3:59 am
THANKS FOR SHARING YOUR SPRING BREAK WITH US. LOOKS AMAZING. MY FAVORITE PHOTO IS THE ONE WHEN THE BOYS ARE CUDDLED UP TO EACH OTHER ON THE COUCH, WATCHING TV.
AND I ACCIDENTALLY HIT THE CAPS LOOK BUTTON IN THE VERY BEGINNING, BUT I DECIDED NOT TO CARE. I DIDNT WANT TO ERASE IT ALL WHEN I REALIZED IT
LOTS OF LOVE
MALIN AND ADAM