Our Trip to the O.C. (not THAT one.)

Wow. I am seriously ready for life to slow down. I can't seem to get my brain back into "life" mode. That's the hardest thing for me after a vacation. Remembering where I left off in life, especially when it was a week ago.

Well, we're back from the Oregon Coast and what a week it was. The drive there was great. My prayers were answered and I didn't get nauseous at all. We got to Lincoln City and the kids were so excited to see the ocean. Macy, who got the thrill-seeking gene from her father, wanted to dive right in and start swimming.

Because she didn't have her swimming suit on at the time, she settled for running away from the waves as they came in.

Payson, who inherited the "scared-of-everything" gene from his mother, kept a safe distance and whined that he wanted to go back to the house.

This is the view of the beach house we rented from the beach with Bill's finger pointing at it. It looks like it's beach-front from the picture, but it's actually poking up behind another house. It was very close to the beach though, a few minutes' walk away.

Here we are at the Aquarium in Newport. The kids loved it.

This is a replica of the jaw of the ancient "giant shark" that supposedly existed millions of years ago. Always great for a photo op.

Watching the sea lions swim.

Our day at the beach. The weather could not have been more perfect the entire time we were there, and I didn't want to leave the beach. Bill put the kids to work and got buried from the neck down.

Macy wanted to try it, but by the time I went to take a picture she was ready to be out, hence the facial expression.

We also did a lot of shopping, eating out, and a lot of driving.
Things I did not get a picture of:

• Bill almost burning down the house when he dropped a flaming Dura Log on the hearth. We had five minutes of complete chaos, terror and excitement as people ran around yelling, getting water, and Bill's 8 month-pregnant sister dislocated her knee, falling to the ground. We finally managed to put it out and shockingly were able to clean it up so no trace of a fire remained, although the house was so smokey that night I had to sleep with the sheet over my face. Bill's sister was fine, but had a nice limp after that. The kids slept through the whole thing.
• Payson throwing up the day after we got there, due to a fever which lasted the entire week and a raging throat/mouth infection that we found out this morning is Strep. Needless to say he was not the happiest camper this trip.
• Drama, drama, drama. It wouldn't be a family vacation without tempers raging, people fighting, miscommunication and lots of irritability, now would it?

I did however, get a perfect shot on the video camera of a sea lion taking a dump into the ocean at the pier. It was awesome.

The trip was fun and anything but boring, but I am sooooo glad to be back and ready to shift my focus to getting ready for school. On a seperate note, I've been off gluton for a a few weeks now and I am FINALLY symptom free!!! No, it's not even a little bit easy eating gluton-free, especially eating out every meal for a week, but so worth it, and actually not as awful as I thought it would be. So, that's it for now. I'm sure within a week I'll have another list of crazy things to blog about, but let's hope not.