The Newport Adventure!

 On our way to Newport the next day! We found that we could see Mt. Hood from where we live!

 The drive was so pretty! And only a couple hours to get to the coast from our house!

 When you are driving along the 101 highway you get glimpses of the coast like this one here!

 Our destination in Newport you ask? Yaquina Bay light house of course! This time Jeff got to go inside and up to the top, and my mom got a stamp in her lighthouse passport! The girls were too short to climb to the top, and I had Roxy and she couldn't go in either so the girls went to the beach while the boys (and my mom) climbed to the top of the light house!

 Marian found a sponge!

 Dani found some more shells!

 Then they took turns tossing shells and sticks back into the water

 During one of their tosses a wave snuck up faster than we thought it would and poor Dani fell down and her pants got all wet.  Fortunately we were close to a store and we just got her some sweat pants afterwards.

 Marian loves finding the kelp, and Dani found lots of rocks!

 Some strange little animal that Marian found washed ashore.

 Even Roxy had a good time!

 This was a museum inside the lighthouse vistor center, it was pretty neat

 You can't see them as well in this pic, but there were seal lions surfing out there in the waves!

 The little dots in the water are the sea lions!

 These are harbor seals that were sunning themselves this day! Normally you can walk right down on that beach there and look at the tide pools, but today they had a sign up telling you not to disturb the seals, good thing it was getting dark by the time we got there, I wanted to see the tide pools, but the seals were just as fun to watch!

 The sunset that day was amazing! I couldn't believe that this was the last day in December!!!! The weather was so nice! (back in Utah the temps were hovering around the upper teens) Out here it was up int he 40's at least!

The funny thing is Jeff has been trying to tell me that all I am going to see for the next 3-4 months is dark clouds and rain (as that is all he has seen the last month and a half), but I told him that as soon as I get up there I will bring the sun with me! (and guess what so far so good! If it has been cloudy at all it has come and gone throughout the day, and most of the time it has been sunny!)