Life is Good!

It has become a tradition in this family to spend the last few days of summer break before Labor Day at the beach in Lincoln City. There is an outlet mall there, so we also do some back-to-school shopping, but the main purpose is to goof off before the mad rush of September begins.

We all agree that it's a Very Good Idea.

Although the girls did drag us through 5 consecutive hours of "Project Runway" one night, we spent most of our time on the beach. The water was way too cold for swimming, but the tide pools are always fun to explore. We never disturb anything beyond teasing the sea anemones a little bit, although Lydia has been known to try to feed things to the crabs.

I had my best trip ever for beach combing. I have loved sea shells since I was very little, and this year I found a bunch of intact shells of species I have never collected before, which was pretty exciting. I kept a bunch of broken ones too -- they "broke pretty" into lovely spiral designs. Very idea stimulating!



The sun decided to show off in a major way on Wednesday evening. We took advantage of the incredible light conditions to play with some portrait photography. Lydia snapped this shot of Jake and I after I decided it had gotten too dark for photography. What do I know???


Time to get back to Real Life now!