Oregon Birthday

This year I spent my 37th birthday weekend on a girls trip to Oregon coast! It just happened to be the only time that everyone could go, but I didn't mind. Tai was sad I was gone on my birthday though. I was bummed that I wasn't able to go with my family on their Oregon trip right after I had Kolt, but Ashley has been a handful of times so she offered to help us plan a fun trip.

We had first planned on driving, but Katey got us on board with flying since it was only $117. We left FRIDAY morning and arrived in Portland around 11am. Katey gave each of us a "prize" to snack on along the way; pumpkin spice chocolate covered almonds. 

Thank you Katey!

And for my favorite quote of the trip, "I'm not trying to change my life right now, I'm just trying to have fun." Sounds perfect to me!

Tedi rented us a car and we headed for the coast. Our first stop was at Blue Heron in Tillamook for lunch. Jordan recommended a couple good places to eat while we were there!

From there we visited the Cape Meares Lighthouse. We were 5 minutes too late for the last tour, but the views were beautiful anyways!

We also walked up to see the Octopus Tree and help Katey look for mushrooms. The whole trip all she wanted was to see red mushrooms, but the closest she got was this purple one.

After that we stopped at Short Beach. We had to walk down a bunch of stairs and explored the rocks for a little while.

Our next stop was Tunnel Beach. We parked at Oceanside and walked over to go through the tunnel to Tunnel Beach. Once we came out we thought we were back at Short Beach for a minute and wondered how we missed seeing the giant tunnel before! Once we walked farther out we saw that it was a different beach, but we were laughing so hard that everyone probably thought we were nuts! "We're so stupid we don't even know we're stupid! We're double stupid!" Haha Also laughing at how Katey cannot keep her eyes open in pictures!

After that we made our way to Rockaway Beach, where our AirBnb was on Dolphin St, and had dinner at Beach Bite. We first walked into Pirate's Cove Restaurant in Garibaldi, but realized it was too expensive for us.

Garibaldi has a cute little G on the mountain, just like Pleasant Grove.

SATURDAY morning we walked from our AirBnb to Rockaway Beach and it was probably my favorite part of the trip! We walked along the shore and saw so many jellyfish and pieces of sand dollars. I was so excited to find sand dollars! I have never been to a beach and seen them before. I just love the beach. Watching the waves is the best kind of natures TV. The morning fog made it hard to see the twin rocks, but we could barely make them out in the distance.

We walked along some of the shops in Rockaway and found the cutest sand dollar pastries! The strawberry cream cheese one was so good that I went back for another one on Monday morning.

At the next shop over I bought some salt water taffy for the kids and fishing socks for Kyle.

After everyone shopped for a little while we got in the car to head north up the coast.

Our first stop was Hug Point. We had to watch for the waves to roll back long enough for us to run around a big rock to get over to Hug Point. At different times of the year there's a small waterfall poring over the rock, but there wasn't much water there this late in the year. I got a hug at Hug Point though!

Next we stopped at Cannon Beach and saw Haystack Rock.

We stopped at a few more stores near Cannon Beach and got lunch at Ecola Seafood Restaurant. Yummy clam chowder.

Our next quest was to see the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, which ended up being ridiculously harder than it needed to be. Google told us it could be seen from Ecola State Park so that is where we went. But you cannot see it from there, although the views are gorgeous!

So then we drove to Indian Beach because Google told us it could be seen from there also. Well, we still couldn't see it. And no information boards said where to go either, even though we could see it on the map. So we started hiking on the 2.5 mile trail in our flimsy sandals. Luckily we came to a spot where we could see it about a half mile in! It's over a mile off the coast though so it's kinda hard to see much of anything.

I love hiking though and the beauty of the forests there are unreal!

We didn't have time to visit Astoria. So I guess I made my kids watch the Goonies for nothing. Haha That movie is not good, but we had enough daylight to run up to Seaside. We walked down Broadway street to see the beach, but it was getting dark fast. All we really saw was the Lewis and Clark statue, where their expedition ended, and quite a few fires out on the beach. So we went and got ice cream before going back to Rockaway.

When we woke up SUNDAY morning it was my birthday! Ashley brought a banner and gave me a card-so sweet! There was also news that President Nelson had passed away the night before. He had just turned 101 years old. I was remembering when President Hinckley passed away, I was with Ashley then too, living in Raintree, when I found out. I am reading President Nelson's book, 'Heart of the Matter' right now and have loved it so far. He really was a healer of hearts.

We went out to breakfast at Grumpys Cafe and our server told us cow jokes and had the whole place sing Happy Birthday to me! Before we headed south, Katey and Tedi wanted to jump in the freezing cold ocean so Ashley and I went down to watch. Just having my feet in was cold enough for me!

On the side of the road was this amazing flower farm, Old House Dahlias, so we pulled over to walk through the rows of the most amazing flowers ever. Zip and Goldie were so nice to let us admire it all.

Then we stopped at Cape Kiwanda and watched a few surfers surf for a few minutes.

After that we made it to Yaquina Head Lighthouse! I made everyone listen to Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy as we drove up. I love the symbolism of using our light to help save others in darkness.

The fourth and final lighthouse that we stopped to see on our trip was Yaquina Bay Lighthouse.

For lunch we went to Thai Port where we had the yummiest mango sticky rice any of us had ever had. Katey was so sweet and bought my lunch for my birthday too!

On our way back north, we stopped to see the Devils Punchbowl. It was SO windy!

Then we stopped to hike to Munson Falls. There were these huge yellow slugs all along the trail and the cutest rock that looked like the troll on Frozen. Everything is just so green!

The trail was blocked off before we could make it all the way to the falls, but we got a pretty good view. Still not much water flowing this time of year though. It's a 319 foot waterfall and is the tallest waterfall in the Oregon Coast.

We stopped to get more ice cream and went home to watch the movie Safe Haven before bed.

MONDAY morning we stopped at Pronto Pup, the birthplace of the corn dog, so Ash could go for a ride.

Then we went on a walk along the Cedar Nature Preserve Boardwalk.

Katey wanted to walk around the docks in Wheeler and then we headed to the Tillamook factory. We got cheese samples and bought some more Tillamook ice cream. You can never eat too much ice cream!

We grabbed lunch at Tacos La Providencia before going back to the airport to fly home. The flight back was pretty bumpy the whole way so I held Katey's hand to help her not be so anxious. Kyle would have died! He hates flying for that reason.

This trip was so incredible! Thank you friends for coming with me. I loved how many beautiful places there were to stop and see. Next time I'd love to visit Astoria and Florence and maybe find some good tide pools. I also want to see Horsetail and Ponytail falls. 

Besides that, the weather was perfect, the food was delicious and the area was gorgeous!

Thanks Ashley for sharing Oregon with us! I love you guys.

While I was gone the kids got to have fun with Kyle, going to a carnival at Krista's work and having movie nights with pizza too!