Getting Our Feet Wet...

This past weekend, the girls and I made a trip up to the Portland area to visit our good friends Eva-Maria and her daughter, Alexandra. Having them in Oregon to visit has certainly made the summer even more fun for us three. We had decided to take a camping trip on the coast, but alas! we had not planned ahead enough, and all state campgrounds were booked. So, we decided to look for some smaller campgrounds inland, and we finally found a spot not far from their house. Although I've been camping in various situations before, this was the first real camping experience for us three girls (pitching the tent, cooking food over an open pit fire, using the outside pump to get water, etc.). Eva and Alexandra were old pros and showed us a thing or two when it came to being seasoned campers! Luckily, since it was a small campground, we weren't bothered by noise from other campers, and the experience was a lot of fun. I think my favorite part was playing card games by twilight.

The next morning, we got up, Eva made a fire (for the much-needed coffee!) and we had a leisurely breakfast before packing up and heading to Cape Meares to lie on the beach. This was Shabbi's first visit to the Pacific Ocean (now she and Kika have done the Atlantic, the Great Lakes and the Pacific--what travellers my girls are!) and she got her toes wet before getting bowled over by an incoming wave! While Shabbi might not have her "beach legs" anymore, we all had a good time sitting around, watching Alexandra and her dog, Bo, digging in the sand, looking for sandcrabs and sea water. Before we said good-bye to the beach for the day, we paid a visit to the Cape Meares lighthouse and the so-called Octopus Tree (a Sitka Spruce with 6 limbs). All in all, it was a great weekend and we're so happy we got to spend it with such good friends!

Here I am sampling some blackberries along the trail. This has become one of my favorite new pasttimes and I've become quite the sophisticated (or maybe just greedy?) blackberry connosieur!!

The sentinels keeping guard at the campground...

Alexandra digging for sandcrabs at Cape Meares beach...

Yes, I'm a lighthouse geek, and Oregon has plenty to keep my geekiness satisfied. Cape Meares Lighthouse wasn't very big, but was really neat in its history and location.

And the six-limbed "Octopus Tree"...so is it really a hexapus tree???