Washington has a long coast but there are really only three or four towns down the length of it. Ocean Shores is the northernmost town, then Westport, Greyland and Long Beach. Ocean Shores was built in the 60's and they were planning on some major tourism. They laid out 25 miles of canal, created a six hole golf course, marina, and airstrip. The roads were built and consisted of large one way streets divided by large grassy medians. Even today they are nearly empty. Lining those roads are a mixture of still vacant lots and small shops whose ownership changes often. But, while it's not a tourist magnet, nor a place for sunbathing, we like it for a family vacation.
Getting ready to leave is always frustrating. As I was wrestling all our things into the van, the kids sat inside it and fought. I noticed Isaac come running out of the van with someone else in hot pursuit and realized he was barefoot. We've had the experience before of taking a long trip somewhere and showing up to discover that Isaac had no shoes. I asked him where his shoes were and sure enough, they were in the house. (In the interest of full disclosure I should tell you it was 35 degrees outside and my hands were burning with cold. I was trying to wrestle the heavy awkward plastic bins onto the rack on the back of the van. The tie down straps I was using were wet and balky. No one was helping. I was not at my most patient when I asked where his shoes were.) I drove toward the beach, periodically congratulating myself on catching that one. (I'd have to drive 30 minutes back to Aberdeen to find a place to buy shoes once we got to Ocean Shores.)
We left Wednesday morning, stopping to finish delivering our newspapers route before leaving town. We drove two hours to Lacey, which is just north of Olympia (the state capital). We ate at the Main Chinese Buffet on Janice's recommendation. As the kids started piling out, one remained behind. Miriam started crying because she had also gotten in the car without her shoes. I'd packed her a pair of rubber boots and gave her a scolding about getting in the car barefoot. She didn't think the boots were very comfortable since she wears a size 12 1/2 and they were size 8. Those rubber boots always run big don't they? Sharing the parking lot with the restaurant was Shop-co so I went and bought her a new pair of shoes. I found the cheapest ones I could find and think they're great for the beach. Bright pink artificial snake skin flats!
The kids and I enjoyed the buffet. We were sitting right next to the banquet room and while we were eating, we watched well dressed person after well dressed person filing into that room until it was at capacity (at least 70 people). Then, an individual who looked surprisingly like former Washington governor Gary Locke (even sporting his current hair cut) arrived and started working the banquet room. He is now our new United States Ambassador to China. Was it him? Who knows! But, I'll choose to believe that our ambassador was in town and had a hankering for Chinese Buffet!
Miriam got her traditional Chinese buffet meal
jello, breaded chicken, garlic bread, pizza, french fries, watermelon
Jacob decided to take a walk on the wild side
After eating this baby octopus in a spicy sauce, he kind of lost his appetite!
After the buffet, I dropped the boys off at the Olympia regional library where they got temporary access numbers to play games on the computers while I took the rest of the crowd to the Hands on Children's Museum in Olympia. We have a membership to the Everett Children's Museum that gets us in free at participating children's museums around the country. I'd planned on staying two hours and at the end of two hours, I had to pry the kids away from playing. It was a bit sad because it appears Anastaya is growing out of the make believe stage. In the past, she's been right beside the little kids coming up with scenarios. This time, she sat beside me the whole time. It was a nice museum with your standard offerings: water room, restaurant, store, stage, veterinary office, doctor office, etc. They are building a new museum in Olympia and they need it because everything was crammed into a very small space and it was hard to move from place to place. The museum is right on the edge of the state capital campus and the girls really wanted to look around but we needed to get to Ocean Shores to meet up with my mom and my nephew Gabriel. Next year I'll allow for more time and we can take a tour.
William in the ferry boat
Miriam at the dentist chair
picking apples off the "tree"
After driving through rain, snow, hail, and sunshine, we arrived at the beach to sunny skies. As soon as we were unpacked, we went down to the beach to take advantage of the sun. It's officially been 40 days since Seattle has had a sunny day. The forecast is for 2-3 days of sun (just while we're at the beach) and then back to the rain. But, forecasts can be wrong and we aren't taking any chances on missing the beach in the sun. The small children got right to work digging holes in the sand while the big kids went out to the waves and proceeded to get drenched. They each brought two pairs of pants so I wasn't very pleased that not an hour into the trip they already had gotten one pair so wet they'd take days to dry. Thankfully I'd planned for emergencies and had brought along laundry detergent to use in the washer and dryer the hotel provides.
Once we were done with the beach, we took the kids to pizza where we received Ocean Shores famous lack of service at the restaurant. After time spent in the pool, everyone was ready to hunker down and watch movies before turning in for the night.
My mom had a moment of panic in the night. She's recently been fitted with a mouth guard to wear while she's sleeping, a $400 night guard. She realized in the middle of the night that she'd forgotten to put it in. She looked where she left it on the night stand and it wasn't there. She proceeded to search the room as well as she could with three other people sleeping in it and gave up. In the morning, she gave it a better search but still couldn't find it. When we asked the little ones as a last ditch effort, we found out that Miriam and Gabriel had been playing hide and seek with it and it was still hiding. Thankfully, Gabe knew where he'd left it last and the night guard has been safely recovered! We're very pleased that it was Gabe that hid the mouth guard, not William because he would never have remembered where he stashed it! I don't think Boma would have been very excited to play hide and seek with it!
I'm so glad there was pizza there or Miriam would have never trusted my judgement again! =)
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