Life After Our First Mission: Zariwnyville

Sunset at Pacific City

Down to the Beach

We had two mini vacations back-to-back the last two weeks so the blog for September 23^rd is being written on September 30^th.

We celebrated our forty-ninth wedding anniversary on Wednesday. Due to meetings in the evening we went out to a Thai lunch in the middle of a quiet day at the apartment. Maybe next year we will make a bigger “splash” for our fiftieth anniversary. That depends on where we will be and what we will be doing. No we didn’t receive our mission call this week either.

On Friday we started our trip to Pacific City to spend the weekend with the Zariwny’s. (Their mini vacation really started a few weeks ago when they joined the Cortez’s at the Wings and Waves water park.) We woke up to rain and decided to take two cars to make room in the van for the food and luggage, despite our plan to all ride down in the same car. As the time approached to load the cars and go, we experienced a change in the weather so Kerry hooked up the trailer to carry the food and luggage and we all traveled in the van to the beach. This allowed us to play “I spy”, “twenty-one questions” and the “ABC” games while we snacked on nuts, crackers, candy and cookies.

Dakota

As we got closer to Pacific City the sky became clearer and clearer until when we arrived we had a bright sunny afternoon. We settled into the beach house and promptly ran to the beach to play in the water and sand.

No one was excited about cooking, so we planned to go out to eat, but as the sun began to set we decided the beauty of the sunset was better than a restaurant, so we brought pizza back to the house and enjoyed the view.

Saturday was another bright sunny day. Early morning walks on the beach were warm and bright. After Kerry served us a waffle breakfast we went down to the beach to build a sand castle.

Emerson and Dakota

We had tickets to ride the old coastal train at noon, so after lunches were assembled we drove to the train station while Dash napped and Kerry babysat. Dakota and Emerson had never been on a train, so it was a new and exciting activity. On the way back to the beach house, we stopped at the cheese factory for ice cream. After some time on the beach and climbing the giant sand dune, we had dinner and settled in for the evening.

We were blessed the next morning with another beautiful day. After packing the trailer and returning the keys to the house, we started to travel up the coast and do some beach hopping.

Conductor Punches Our Tickets

We stopped at Oceanside to enjoy one of our favorite beaches. After a few minutes on the beach the wind increased and brought a chill in the air so we decided to drive up to the Cape Mears lighthouse to see if we could get out of the cold.

Our last stop of the day was “Hug Point”. There was no wind there and we enjoyed the rest of a sunny, warm day before driving home.

We couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful weekend at the beach.