Summer Sun and Fun

It's hard to believe that it's August already.  The Pacific Northwest has experienced a pretty crappy summer so far.  It's been pretty cold.  I've been wearing jeans and a sweatshirt in the mornings, but by afternoon it's capri's and a t-shirt - capri's, not shorts!!  Grrr

Although the weather has been BLAH, it hasn't stopped us from having some good ol' summer fun.  Every Thursday, a local park has "concerts in the park" and we've attended 2 so far - FUN!  The first week was a great band who played covers from the 70's and 80's - they also included a costume change during intermission!  While playing the 70's tunes, they were dressed in bell bottoms, platform shoes and fro's, then they returned from intermission and they were in 80's dayglo wear!  It was fun!  The kids danced to the tunes.  Last week Quarterflash was there!   Yep, Harden My Heart band - apparently they are from Portland.  It was nice too. 

C and I headed to the beach one Sunday as an "almost' last minute trip.  We thought of it the day before, however, a night of drinking left us less than ready bright and early in the morning.  It's OK because we got ourselves together and off we went to Seaside.  Our adventure started off with an adventure.  C had a craving for DQ, so she loaded it into the GPS and it said 5 miles off the highway was a DQ.  Uh-huh, 5 miles plus a few more and it was more than just getting off the highway and take a right and a left.  On the way to the DQ, we found a (self named) Rug.  An 1/2 RV and 1/2 VW Bug.  C and I have been playing the "Slug Bug" game for a while, but we had no idea whether the Rug would count.   We shopped in the stores, dipped our toes into the frigid cold water of the Pacific Ocean and laughed at the people we saw.  For a long time, we have been collecting "pennies" on all of our adventures.  The pennies are the ones that get flattened in a machine while being engraved with a picture from the area.  I got C a penny holder from Disney, but didn't get one myself, so I was on a mission to find one - and I did.  After our day out and collecting some pennies, we were headed back to Vancouver when C noticed a website on the back of my new penny holder.  It told of where to find all penny machines in the USA!!  We actually missed 2 penny machines in Seaside, so we turned around (we were only at the gas station in town) and sought out the machines.  It was just before closing time, so we had to hurry!  Once the pennies were found, we headed to Camp 18 for some yummy food!  We then explored the old logging camp before heading home - which was an adventure in itself.  There was a major accident on the highway and we were detoured south about 25 miles.  All well, it was fun.

This past Sunday we loaded up the kids and headed to Bonneville Dam and fish hatchery.  It was really cool - I had never been there.  We watched fish trying to swim up the fish ladders and work their way through the "maze" to get upstream.  I really would like to go back and watch the salmon run.  At the fish hatchery we saw Herman the Sturgeon - 11 foot long, 500 pound, 70 year old white sturgeon.  Very fun as well. 

The Rug

Seaside beach

 

 

 

 

 

Camp 18 photos

Concert at the park

Bonneville Dam/fish hatchery