Monday morning we headed to the ocean. We brought lunch with us and on the way out of town I had Bethany stop at Target so I could get a couple of short sleeve shirts for the kids. I hadn't packed any because it had been cold at our place and rainy in the Portland area but for the 4 days we were there the temps were in the 70's and we were hot in our long sleeves. By the time I got back out to the van the kids were already started on eating snacks. We made the trip to the coast with Cecily only asking about 20 times how much longer. We stopped first at Cape Meares Light house. Here we got our first good look at the ocean. WoW! It is so big and beautiful. We followed the paths around that area and saw the Octopus Tree and climbed to the top of the light house. We also had lunch there. We then headed down to Oceanside. We ventured out on the beach and just let the kids run for a bit. There is a tunnel through the hill that connects one beach to another so we crossed through the tunnel and spent our time on that further beach. The kids immediately took off their shoes and socks except for Dallin who stayed up on the rocks the whole time. The kids would run up to the waves and wait until they started to come and then run away from them. I was filming them do this when suddenly Max became so enamored by the waves that he began running right into them. It looked like he was headed straight out to sea and I started to worry about him hitting a drop off or getting sucked in by a wave. Bethany must have felt the same way because we both started yelling to him but he just seemed to keep going. He was in the water up to his calves when a big wave headed his way. It caught him and tipped him over. Luckily he resurfaced quickly and raced back to shore but not before falling down again. Needless to say he was completely drenched. He was also very cold so I had to walk him all the way back to the van and let him change. We made a deal that he would stay completely out of the water because I had only brought him one set of clothes to change into. Luckily everyone learned from Max's mistake and stayed out of the water for the rest of the time. We spent about 4 hours on the beach looking for agates, sea shells and treasure. We brought home bags of things that we put out in our front flower bed for decoration. The kids also took several of their favorites in to share with their classes. On our way home from the coast we stopped in Tillamook and toured the cheese factory and tried their cheese samples. We also each got an ice cream cone. We ended up getting back later than planned so instead of supper the kids just got snacks and I never did eat because I was so full of ice cream. We watched the movie "Bedtime Stories" that evening before putting the kids to bed.