Rick had a 3 day weekend for the 4th of July so we decided to head out of town to get away from the 100+ degree weather! Our first stop was Long Beach, WA. (after trying to hike up the Astoria Column, only to see it was closed for renovations) It was such a beautiful day on The Coast and we have the sun burns to prove it!
Our attempt at a group selfie..the boys were not very cooperative!
You would've thought we were back on our GA/FL beaches with the way the kids were playing in the water!
Blake was nice and dug in the sand with Ashlyn after him and Rick threw the football around for awhile.
It was a great beach that we could drive out onto, but people were driving around 4 wheeling like crazy playing in the sand, so after a few hours we headed to Cannon Beach for a change of scenery.
Oh how we love the view there!
Unfortunately it wasn't low enough tide for many tide pools, but we were able to find a few...
By then it was getting late, so we headed back to our hotel back in Portland.
The next morning we headed to OMSI for the kids' first time. Our favorite thing was the tour of the U.S.S Blue Back submarine. Watch out Uncle Jeremy, the kids are going to take over your job!
It was pretty amazing to look out the periscopes and see how clear you could see so far away...if only the people jet skiing and boating on the river knew we were watching them so closely!
Needless to say, it was pretty tight quarters on the submarine and was pretty funny watching every body squish through the door ways.
Then we toured the rest of the museum for a few hours and watched an IMAX movie on Jacques Cousteau and the ocean that was beautiful. There was a Ripley's Believe it or Not wing at OMSI...
...the kids looked pretty silly sitting in the chair of the 8'11 ft. man that lived in the early 1900's.
And we did some chemistry experiments, which Blake decided were not his cup of tea. We will see if he finds his chemistry classes in school any better pretty soon!
Then we went out to dinner and crashed back at the hotel. We had plans of going down to the water front in down town Portland for the fireworks but were wore out and voted to watch them on tv instead on snuggled in our cozy beds.
This morning we slept in, grabbed some breakfast and then hit The Gorge on our way home for a little hiking along the Scenic Highway.
Every time we drive to Portland the kids ask what Vista House is...so we finally stopped for the pretty view.
The first waterfall we hit was Latourell Falls. It was a little hike in/out to get to it, but was well worth it! So pretty!
The next stop was Bridal Veil Falls. This was a lot longer/steeper hike and it was starting to get pretty hot!
The kids were pretty amazed when we finally go to it though and were excited they changed into water sandals like we suggested so they could climb down around on the rocks.
It was like being in a mister machine, felt soooo good on such a hot day!
Being a holiday weekend the highway was pretty busy so we had to pass a few of the waterfalls since there wasn't any parking. They really wanted to go try out the Oneonta Gorge...you have to wade through chest deep water through a canyon to get get back to the swimming hole. However, when we got there there were WAY too many cars and no where to park so we continued on to....
Horsetail Falls. It looked like there might be a swimming hole so they all changed into their swimming suits before hitting the path to get down to it.
(I decided to be the DRY/WARM designated camera person)
It took them awhile to ease their way into the SNOW MELT OFF, but all three of them finally made it! Ashlyn didn't last very long in the FREEZING water but was proud to say she made it in all the way.
The boys swam all the way out to the waterfall though...and swam for quite awhile...they were crazy! They finally had to call it quits when Ashlyn was freezing and needed to go back to change into dry clothes.
This is what they both looked like for a good portion of the drive home...
I think we can call that a successful weekend getaway!
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