Cannon Beach Adventure

We took a day trip to Cannon Beach this week. Bill had a day off in the middle of the week and we had been talking about taking Judah to the coast ever since our (childless) get away at Depoe Bay for our 5 year wedding anniversary this last spring.

This was only Judah's second time ever at the coast. When he was not quite two months old we took him to the Washington coast, to the area around Forks. Needless to say, he got a lot more out of it this time around.

We were pretty sure he would like it, based on his love of the sandbox and throwing rocks into rivers. And we were correct. He was a big fan.

He really liked the birds and kept trying to get close to them, but oddly enough they just kept flying away. We had him try to feed a seagull so he could get a bit closer. However, he interpreted our directions as 'run directly at the seagull while concealing food in your fist'. Wouldn't you know it? The seagulls would then fly away. We tried showing him how to throw the food, but he couldn't launch it far enough (in part because he is 2 and in part because it was windy).

Despite the fact that we went to the coast in the middle of freaking August, the temperature was only in the 60s. And it was overcast. And gray. And windy. And started to rain. And then kept raining progressively harder. Eventually our gumption ran out and we retreated back to the car and changed into dry clothes and headed home.

We got in a good 4+ hours on the beach, but I'm sure if it was warmer (or if he was in warmer/waterproof clothing) Judah could have kept playing until the sun went down (and then some). We will definitely need to take him to the coast more often than once every two years.

We found a bunch of sand piles/castles that Judah played on. He climbed all over one particularly large mound of sand. Once he would get to the top he would slide down face first. He got just a tad bit sandy in this process.

He also destroyed an entire little city of sand castles. I'm pretty sure he didn't start out with that as his goal. He had found a feather and wanted to put in the top of one of the castles, as one of the other castles had a feather topper as well. However, his none too gentle insertion of the feather just ended up smashing the castle. He figured out that was pretty fun and went on to smash all the castles. Plus, a group of 6 or so grandparent aged people came upon him and thought he was just so adorable that they encouraged him and even took pictures of him in the process. That kid loved his adoring fans. 

He received a fair amounts of compliments, which was largely due to his Superman shirt and cape. He picks out his own clothing and that morning he pulled all of the t-shirts out of his drawer until he came to his Superman shirt. It was definitely a good choice for a windy beach day. Bonus: the cape did double duty as a snot rag (since, of course, with it being so cold his little nose started dripping).

Bill also picked out his own clothes, appartently with the intention of camoflaging himself within the surroundings. Only his stark white socks gave him away. Also, wtf, why even wear socks and boots to the beach? I know he wore them so he could check out tide-pools (we got there a little too late to see the good ones around Haystack Rock, but we still got to see a few smaller ones and Judah was suitably impressed with those). What I don't get though, is why he didn't change into his sandals (or just go barefoot) once we were done with the tide-pools and were just playing in the sand? Whatever. Judah and I enjoyed having our feet in the sand (that is once I finally took his shoes off after they were soaking wet and covered in sand).

Despite the lack of photographic evidence, Shoshana and I were also there. She spent the her time at the beach strapped to us in her Beco. She slept pretty much the whole time we were out on the beach. The sound of the ocean has that magical effect on babies. It was the same way when we brought Judah as an infant.