Lincoln City, OR

Well now that I'm back and more settled into my daily routine, I have a few moments to catch everyone up our trip out to Lincoln City, Oregon to meet up with our families for a week at the Oregon coast. Both my entire family and Jason's entire family drove out the beach house, while Kati came to pick up Jason and I in Portland where we had flown into. Thankfully, we were able to get a nice quiet evening alone together the night before and stay in a lovely hotel relaxing and catching up on life. Then the following day, the excitement really began.

It had been 7 months since I had seen my family and a year since Jason had seen his. A long time for both of us. Emotions were running high as we had anticipated every hug and moment we'd get to share together. It was hard to even go to bed the first night, cause you just didn't want to say goodnight. On the whole, it was a great week. But it is family and as everyone can testify, we all have our moments. :-)

The majority of the trip was captured with snapshots of our time together and looking back on these pictures I can't help but smile at how much fun we really did have.

This is the view of the ocean from the beach house we had rented. You could hear the waves crashing at night, which I think was one of my favorite parts about the house.The second day of our week together, we all headed out to the Kite Festival. It was a cold windy day, which I guess is perfect for kite flying! When we weren't out exploring the towns, you could find us either curled up with a good book, working on puzzles (of which 3 were completed within just hours!), playing games

or catching a quick nap.I think one of the most entertaining aspects of the trip was the constant whooping Jerry gave to Jason and my dad in horseshoes. What a competitor!! The man has skillz!
The views of the ocean and all the wildlife was breathtaking!Oops, my sisters are definitely wild, full of life and breathtaking, but not exactly what I was referring to!A few of the family were able to see this seal out lounging in the sun on the rocks - so mad I missed this one! But Scott, Kelley, myself and Jason did see a whale! You can only sit just a tip of it in this picture here. And if this isn't classic Jason and I, I don't know what is. He was always trying to get right up to the edge of the rocks and I was doing my best to stay as clear from the edge as possible!

So it looked like this when we finally sat down to enjoy the view.

Another excursion we all took together was to see the Aquarium in Newport. Jason and I were big fans of the otters. In fact it was the first otters Jason had ever seen in person.
See how mesmerized he was by them?
Jerry's impression of a deep sea diver kills me.
Or how about Jason with the shark teeth!

And no trip to the Aquarium would be complete without our very own cameraman.

Jason did his best to blend in with the wildlife.

Oh and who could forget our attempt at a hike!! Ha! We had no idea what we were really getting ourselves into, so quite a few of us were a bit unprepared. We decided instead to head to the beach for a little sun and Frisbee and attempt the hike the next morning, but the weather had other plans.

Ummm..yummy, Jason doing his best Top Gun Beach scene impression. Ok maybe not exactly, but he was tossing the Frisbee around with Scott and Jerry. I think this was one of my favorite moments captured in a photo - because the times I'll remember most are the ones we all sat around the table eating together or playing games.

Here's to a great family trip together - PEACE OUT!