Dear Cool,

Seriously, we are so over you. You burrow yourself into the minds of many from a very young age and cause a variety of emotions. Sometimes feelings of greatness and accomplishment, but most times discouragement and despair. 

You can set the precedence for what's socially acceptable and what's not. You can create confidence and self-consciousness at the exact same time. You rob dreamers of dreams and getting lost in a world of imagination all because of your ridiculous standards. You become a fixation; taking away the little things that make life fun. You create unnecessary expectations that never need to exist for a child.

Really? Who are you anyway? I know you got to me as a kid and throughout my teenage and early adult years and I think I'm lucky that I made it out alive considering those days weren't very long ago. I see you messing around with my kids, causing doubt and fear and I've had just about enough. 

I know it's not going to be easy but I know I've had enough of being in your clutches. I'm going to be ME and my kids are going to be THEM and well if that's just not cool enough for ya, get over yourself.

I WILL NOT allow you to take away my kids ability to have fun and enjoy things that they love to do regardless of what age they are. I WILL NOT let you influence them to do things they aren't comfortable doing and I DEFINITELY WILL NOT let them feel like they need to change who they are in order to be accepted by YOU.

Signed, 

WE ARE SO OVER COOL FAMILY!!

We Love Oregon! Part 2

Thanks for tuning in again! My last post had us back at our hotel for a much needed moment to recharge our batteries. I must say I was quite impressed with how our girls handled the heat (it was about 29-31 degrees out) and the trek around the park. It wasn't until 3/4 of the way through that we noticed they offered strollers for rental. They look a lot like bike trailers so it definitely would have accommodated the 2 girls during those my-legs-are-so-tired-they're-about-to-fall-off-moments.

Off to downtown Portland we went, with our tummies hungry for some good grub. We've enjoyed visiting the Deschutes Brewery a couple times before that after a hot day like we had, we couldn't stop thinking about the ice cold beer we'd like to enjoy. Best part? Well there's many, but one of them is the fact that it is a child friendly brewery/pub/restaurant complete with a kids menu and coloring pages.

While we enjoyed our sampler (either our own picks or brewer's pick of 6 different types of beer) and a bowl of beer nuts (seriously addicting and the kids loved them too!) the kids enjoyed their delicious mac 'n' cheese and cheeseburger respectively. Hubs enjoyed the brewery burger which he could not stop raving about and inhaled in about 10 minutes and I ordered the steak and blue cheese Caesar salad. Not that I'm complaining or anything but like, there was a LOT of blue cheese. Almost too much. Almost.

Once our tummies were full, we walked over to Powell's Book Store for a peruse in the many millions of aisles of books they had to offer. Emma finished the first 4 books of a series she got for her birthday and I was more than certain they'd have more to grab there. Seriously can't get over how reasonably priced books were. They each got to pick out 4 books. We threw in 2 extra (the Judy Moody series) for Emma because hey, if they cost $2.50 each, why wouldn't we?

After that lovely visit, what better way to end off our night in Portland than by satisfying our sweet tooth over at Voodoo Donuts!

Hubs ordered the original Voodoo donut, Emma ordered the Double Bubble, Olivia ordered a chocolate frosting and I ordered the apple fritter. Now I'm not one to complain about a dessert per se, but this apple fritter was sooo oily, I could feel my arteries congealing with grease. Can't say that I was impressed.

The children zonked out on the car ride home and that was just fine with us. The more sleep they got tonight, the more energy they'd have to play at the beach the next morning!

We have visited the Oregon coast twice before this visit and both times we were welcomed with mediocre weather. The forecast mentioned we'd be greeted with sunny/cloudy skies with a temperature of 20 but feeling like 24. We have learned from the past that it is best to check the weather the day of before we decide to trek to the coast, but since this was the last leg of our trip and we wanted some sand time, we didn't care too much if the sun was out.

Enter rain. Thankfully only during the drive there. I was stupidly dressed in a bathing suit thinking I'd be optimistically dressed for the weather only to be greeted with a slight breeze and a lot of overcast. Off into the car I went to change out of said outfit and then off we went to the beach. 

The view is really breathtaking; especially of haystack rock. You forget how large it really is! 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Haystack_Rock_Oregon.jpg/1280px-Haystack_Rock_Oregon.jpg

(ok cannot take credit for this picture, we were much further away from haystack rock

and none of my pics did it justice!)

The little town of Cannon Beach is also so charming, complete with plenty of handmade goods and delicious food.

It didn't take very long for us to find a spot to set up camp and play in the sand. We walked closer to the shoreline, only to visit for a short time because the water was frigid! Thankfully we were set up by a tide pool which allowed the girls to get their much needed water to build their sandcastles. 

Even I got my hands dirty and even got ambitious enough to recreate Disneyland in sandcastle form. And then I made my family pretend they were visiting different lands. It's not weird.

We flew our kite and built some more and definitely built up an appetite for lunch. We loaded up the car and then took a quick stroll over to Bruce's Candy Kitchen, because of course who doesn't eat desserts before their main meal? They are very well known for their salt water taffy, so we chose an assortment to take home and enjoy. 

Then, off to lunch! There's an adorable little creperie called Crepe Neptune that the girls adored the last time we visited so it was without hesitation that they agreed to crepes for lunch.

Someone is thoroughly enjoying their nutella, strawberries & whipped cream crepe!

The hubs and I decided to order some pizza from Fultano's (GREAT PIZZA!) that would serve as lunch and dinner for us so we would save ourselves a stop on the long journey home.

Another successful trip to Oregon done! We always have a great time and look forward to our next visit back!