Oregon Coast 2018

We decided to keep a bit of Andy's childhood traditions alive by taking our kids camping at the coast this summer. We stayed at the Barview Jetty campground in Rockaway Beach, Oregon, the same place he stayed as a kid even though he claims to not remember it :). I was so anxious to see the ocean since we got in late the night before that when Abby woke up at 6 AM to go to the bathroom, even though it was still pretty chilly and windy outside, we walked over to the beach in our pjs to see it. We got to do a lot of fun things over the next few days that were new to our family and old traditions for Andy like visiting Cape Meares and its famous octopus tree, buying tons of saltwater taffy and buying souvenirs at Flamingo Jims. Abby was most excited about flying her kite. We did that at Fort Stevens where we also visited the Peter Iredale shipwreck ruins. Wynn was most fascinated by that part of our trip and stayed to listen for the whole 30 minute presentation about it by the park ranger. Sydney loved making sandcastles and playing in the tide pools at Hug Point the most. They could've stayed there all day if the tide hadn't started coming back in threatening to trap us at the beach we'd climbed around a cliff point to get to. The newly renovated and bigger Tillamook cheese factory didn't disappoint and Andy got to get some of his favorite squeaky cheese on our way out of town (also a Shinsel family tradition). He even got to go to the Tillamook Air Museum which he remembers wanting to visit as a kid. Wynn and Sydney were super interested as she showed them around and told them all about the different planes, engines, rockets, and other aviation paraphernalia they had around. I was really worried about camping for 4 nights since we've never taken the kids camping for so long before but they did great. They went to bed easy and slept better than they even do at home. I guess we wore them out! It was a fun trip and were looking forward to doing that again to keep the traditions alive in our family too!