An Oregon Surprise!

We spent the weekend in Pacific City, Oregon

celebrating Frank's Aunt Judy.

It was a surprise party for her 70th birthday!

The goal was for as many family members as possible to come to the beach and surprise her

and celebrate with her.

One of the perks of living closer now

is that we can go for just a weekend

and it feels ok.

Before, the flights themselves ate up two whole days

so there was no way to really do a weekend trip.

So when Trina called us about the idea we immediately said yes.

I'm so glad we went.

It was wonderful in every way.

Weather-perfect

Family-lots!

Food-delicious and made by someone else

Sand-soft and gorgeous

We played cards

We played volleyball on the beach 

(we were awful but it was super fun)

We ate delicious meals made by Trina

There was a lot of chatting while sitting out on the deck

We went sledding on the sandy dunes

We climbed the huge sand dune nearby
(no pictures of the sand dune? You'll have to trust me.  It was huge)

On the last evening, we climbed partway up the dune to watch the sunset.

Walks on the beach

Our view of the sunset was gorgeous!

And every evening there would be a bunch of folks standing not the deck trying to capture it just perfectly.

We had a fire on the beach and toasted s'mores

Of course we had a party with cake and presents for Aunt Judy!

On the last day, a dead sea lion washed up on shore not far from our house

It looked like it had been bitten by a shark.

Of course we all had to go down and look at it.

But William, Frank's sister's son, said he wished he could have a tooth out of that sea lion.

Frank, being Frank, got into that idea and told him to go find some pliers and a hammer!

Which he did.

And off they went to extract a tooth.

all I can say is..

ew

I love that Frank's family is so close-knit.

We had cousins from as far away as Florida there.

As well as a strong contingent from Indiana.

Old friends came.

And all the sisters were together.

I loved everything about this weekend.