Memorial Day Weekend

We had the best long weekend ever hanging out with great friends and exploring this amazing world which was created for us and is protected by soldiers I am so thankful for!

We started Saturday morning by going to the local parade. Jaco was in the parade this year playing his violin! It was fun to watch him.We left the parade as soon as Jaco was done so we could hit the road and drive to the coast to go camping with our neighbors and friends the Bruners. We had beautiful weather Saturday. The ocean was green with blue skies above and almost no wind. It was the first time I have ever seen the Oregon coast so clear and warm!We had a big barbecue feast Saturday night with a variety of salads, corn on the cob, watermelon, steak, ribs, and garlic bread. YUM! And of course we had smores before bed! Breakfast Sunday morning was cooked over the fire and very unhealthy but oh so good!


The kids played while we chatted and cleaned up camp. The Bruners have kids very similiar in age to our kids so they all have a ball together.

We headed north before lunch to explore some more. We stopped at Pistol River because we were told it is a good place to find sand dollars. It is a beautiful beach with lots of soft sand and very few rocks. La-La was actually quite disappointed with the lack of rocks because she loves to find crabs! Daddy, Jaco, and Care Bear played in the sand while La-La, Cody and I went hunting for a perfect sand dollar. We walked and walked and found lots of pieces but no whole dollars. Then I saw what looked like a perfect circle laying in the sand and I hoped it was what I thought it was. I picked it up and one of my dreams came true! I have always wanted to find my own perfect sand dollar and I finally did it! La-La was so excited! She said it is good luck so we both wished into the dollar.

After cleaning off as much sand as possible, we loaded back into the van and kept going north to see our friends the Davis's who used to live by us but moved to Coos Bay in February. As we drove, the sun started to disappear and the ocean turned gray again. Still pretty but not as spectacular. Once we made it to Coos Bay, we packed up some food and headed to the beach. We lit a fire in the sand and roasted hot dogs and smellows. Fun but a little tricky to keep the sand off the food! I had to cook Care Bear 3 dogs because she dropped the first two!

We stayed up late Sunday night and of course the kids all woke up early Monday morning but we had lots of playing still to do so it was all good! After breakfast, we headed to the beach for low tide and finally La-La got her crab finding fix! Care Bear loved getting kissies from the sea anenome. At first she was scared but then she decided it was fun to have her finger hugged by a sea critter. She ran from one tide pool to the next yelling "Kissies, more kissies!"

Jaco is not into finding sea life but he was perfectly content digging in the sand. He made his own tide pool which turned out quite handy when it came time to let all the crabs go that Connor and La-La had collected.

After a quick clothing change, (I must say that I thought I had done so well packing this trip by bringing minimal clothes. For once I could have actually brought more! We had to do several loads of laundry due to the constant wet sandy beach clothes) we went to the Davis's church building for a Memorial Day barbeque. It was supposed to be at the beach but it was a wet drizzly day. Once our bellies were full of more yummy food, we went back to Brooke's house.

Justin and Mike Davis took La-La, Paige, and Connor crabbing while the rest of us rested and Care Bear took a much needed nap.

La-La was a little intimidated by the huge crabs but she had the time of her life. There are rules to crabbing: No female dungeness, any size rock crabs, but the male dungeness crabs have to be 5 3/4" across the back. According to these rules, crabbing on Monday was not a success. They caught some huge females but had to throw them back.

No crabs for dinner, but we had collected several mussels earlier in the day so we (when I say we, I do not include myself...yuck!) had those for dinner with some barbequed chicken, potatoes, corn, baked beans, and ice-cream for dessert. The big boys went off to play while the rest of us tidied up and put kids to bed.

Technically our weekend should have ended and we should have gone home to reality but why end a good thing if you don't have to?! Justin didn't work Tuesday so we opted to skip school and stay one more day to play. Mike did have to go back to work so the rest of us tried one more shot at crabbing. We went to a pier and threw two baskets in. A few minutes later and we had crabs! We weren't able to keep them all according to the rules but we still walked away with about 8 legal crabs.

I tried my hand at pulling in a net and it had one crab and 3 strange looking sea stars. I looked it up and I am pretty sure they were sunflower sea stars. We tried to get them up to the pier but all three fell off too quickly.

Justin and La-La stayed out crabbing for a couple more hours while the rest of us decided it was too cold and windy so we went home to eat lunch and pack up.


Mike came home for lunch right as Justin and La-La got back. Mike showed Justin how to prepare the crabs for eating. It was really gross and kind of violent! Those poor crabs had no chance! Then we boiled the legs and had a crab feast. I chose not to participate because it smelled so fishy! La-La loved it and did pretty good at getting the meat out. Justin did convince me to at least try it which I did and it tasted just like it smelled; GROSS!

Once we had the crab mess cleaned up and found all our gear, we sadly packed up and headed home. It was such a fun trip!

I experienced so many firsts. First time to see the Oregon coast without clouds and wind. First time to find a sand dollar whole and complete. First time to build a fire on the beach. First time to go crabbing and then to learn what to do with the crabs once you catch them. Jaco and Care Bear had a lot of fun but this kind of adventure is truly what La-La LOVES! She was not afraid of anything and was up to try anything. She ate mussels and crab legs and turned over every rock she could find just to pick up the little crabs.