Oregon Coast. AKA Heaven on Earth.

This post will be a post of little words. And by little words, I mean about the same amount of words as other people's posts. I've been known to be a blabbermouth in my day. And really, I have way too many pics to post for that to happen here. So I'll try to be brief. See? Even explaining to you that I will type less than usual in this post has required much more typing than I had intended. 

This year's annual Christensen Family retreat took place on the lovely coast of Oregon, in a quaint little town called Lincoln City. Some would call it a city; a "Lincoln City" if you will, but I call it a town. I graduated early my senior year of high school so that I could go with BYU-Idaho that spring on a biology program and camp all along the Oregon coast for 5 weeks straight (no prisses in this here house). So I have wonderful memories all along this unbelievable coastline. It was more than a treat to return. It was dreamy in every sense of the word. Complete dreamland. I think I'll live there one day.

 Yes, this was what we saw all day, every day from the back windows of this house. Exquisite. And the temperature was a balmy 70-72 degrees or so. Every day. My kind of climate. It turns out I wasn't cut out for extremes. I learned this the time when I was living in Phoenix and the AC went out in my car in July. I showed up to work looking like a drowned rat, soaking wet and had to lie down and make my boss fan me, feed me grapes, and massage my feet for several hours. Nothing of that kind of absurdity here. Just wonderful enough to wear your favorite light jacket. Wonderful enough for your favorite softest blanket and a good book. Anyone who knows me knows I am a soft blanket person. Big time. Our first moments arriving to the beach house:

 Sunsets off of the back balcony. The Lord didn't have to make this earth so splendid. But He did. 

  Hiking. 

 

This was a rare shot I captured of my husband and wee lasses just before hubby started levitating off of the ground. In fact, every time we get into an argument, he threatens to do his glowing/levitating trick. Because frankly, it's very frightening.

Look at the those trees. But mostly, look at my Jason's calves. So I like him. So sue me. 

 A drizzly morning walk to the tidepools.  

We don't know why this happened, but this pic was taken right after Scarlett walked directly into a tidepool. I turned around and she was waist deep and Jason was scooping her out. And it wasn't as if she fell in. She walked slowly and deliberately into it, under some voodoo trance. 

There was a lot of this:
 

Some of this despite hypothermic temperatures of water:

And even some of this:

 With a family this good-looking, you just never know what's going to happen. And cousins sometimes kiss.

Newport aquarium. Jumped inside this little booth, pressed a button and voila! 50 mph winds whipping all around you. Lucy was all about it. Scarlett was not. She got out of there as soon as she could.

 Cousin Corbin was all about it as well, and gladly took her place.  

Grandma and Grandpa C with all of their grandkids minus three. They are the reason we get to do this every year. 

And you know there are more matching T-shirt pictures to come. Many, many more.

So there you have it, folks. About 754 pictures. Isla also had her first all out belly laugh on our drive over there, and we were even lucky enough to catch it on film. Except, that film is on Jason's phone and not at my disposal at the moment. It almost sent our whole family into cardiac arrest, it was that exhilarating. Not kidding. I wish I could tell you all the funny stories that happened while there, all about Aunt Cathy eating all of Scarlett's ice-cream and making her cry, all about the seafood buffet, all about, "It's buckin' bronco time!" and mafia. But I have motherhood to attend to. I've been nursing Isla for the past half hour or so and just heard the kind of rumble in the bronx that can only mean that diaper ain't sustaining it. And Scarlett has been running around naked all morning and she just ran up to tell me that Lucy is eating lotion. So this will have to tie you over 'til the next time. Thanks for tuning in. :)