Christmas at the Coast

After a fun-filled and quite exhausting Christmas, my family packed it all up and headed to the Oregon Coast for 3 days of extended family shenanigans. We spent two days with them, then headed back to Keizer for some more Casqueiro craziness, but the time at the beach was a blast, and will surely be repeated in future years.

We started our trip in Newport, with lunch at Mo's (where else?) and some candy fun at Belinda's at the historic bayfront. O had a majorly problematic diaper, so we missed the group picture at Belinda's, but I was able to snap one of Jenaye playing on a statue :)

Our beach houses (yes there were enough people to require two) were in Lincoln City, so we drove up the coast. It was really beautiful, and the ocean was nice and stormy. HWY 101 is never my favorite, for car-sickness reasons, but I love to watch the ocean in a storm, so it balanced out. We stopped again in Depoe Bay to look at the spouts and play a little more. I stayed in the car to sleep with Olivia, but Alex was able to get some picture time in, including the GQ pose with Dan. I think that picture came from Amber, but it was a pleasant surprise :) what manly men!

This is the beautiful house that the Johnsons and Stays stayed in. All of the Romrells (Gma&Gpa, Chris&fam, Kelvin&fam) stayed in a house just down the street, so we were able to be together most of the time. By the time we got to the house, it was pouring down rain and getting dark, so we hurried in and tried to decide who would get which room. Our particular families are growing both in number and age, so we now have just as many grown-up couples as we do kids. In any other house this would have been a problem for sleeping space, but this amazing rental had 5 master suites (each with a private bath), another bedroom with 2 twins, pullout couches in the bonus room downstairs , and some more couch space upstairs. I honestly think that everyone who wanted a bed got one, and even our little family was able to have our own master suite on the middle floor, which stayed a little quieter for sleeping babies. Overall, I can't say enough about this amazing house. We were totally comfortable staying inside most of the time because the weather was not-so-lovely, and we were rarely hip-to-hip because of lack of space.

Everyone got together that night for pizza, and we had a blast. I was able to catch up with Laura and Sam, who were there for a few days and I hadn't seen in way too long.

We didn't stay up too late the first night, I think everyone was just slightly beyond exhausted. After some game time (including a Grover v. Casqueiro ping pong tournament) we settled in for the night. I'm pretty sure I was one of the first people to go to bed, but I was glad for the extra sleep because Olivia was having a hard time adjusting to the traveling and craziness of our vacation, so she didn't sleep as soundly as usual.

The next morning we got up, ate, and got all bundled up because we were determined to spend some time on the beach. It was still windy and rainy, but was calmer than the night before, so it worked out. You can see the girls a little hunched over to protect themselves from the cold, but everyone enjoyed it.

Elli and Olivia were great friends, and Elli was very sweet and kind to stick back and run around where the water wasn't reaching. Olivia loves to chase her bigger cousins, and I'm glad she has such great and fun examples of kindness from them every time we visit.

Not at all worried to wander away from Dad, she was just having a blast exploring.

The bigger kids went out with Dan and Grandpa to chase some waves. Elli wasn't sure she wanted to, and I was glad she didn't because that made Olivia okay with staying back a ways as well.

We were determined to get a complete immediate family picture before our numbers change again. We are 18 strong in this picture, but that's only going to be a compelte family picture for a few more months, as our family seems to grow by a couple each year. It was so fun to be all together for a good chunk of time, and we really enjoyed our time at the coast. I'll always feel like a kid when we go home to Mom's and I get to run around and play with my siblings again. Luckily mom is around to keep an eye on the kiddos so we can get our play on :).

We took some grandkid pictures as well. I love the first one, because it was just before some said 'Mom, you have to make a normal face, the kids can't see you'. My mom is just so used to being behind the camera jumping and making gorilla noises to get the kids to smile :).

What a great looking bunch of kids!

After lunch Candy pulled out her gingerbread making stuff for a major party for all the kids. Everyone had a blast, and I saw quite a few grown-ups 'teaming' up with the kids in an effort to get in on the action (and perhaps raid a candy bowl or two). I'm still staring at this amazed at all the preparation Candy put in. She is very crafty and makes such cute things. In this case, the gingerbread was all homemade, but that's nothing compared to the handmade ornaments, little stockings for the kids, and other things that she made and brought this year. I'm blessed to have such an amazingly crafty sister to learn from!

This is a poor quality phone picture, but we were all laughing at Olivia's possessiveness over 'her' Grandma. Mom was just sitting feeding Kylie when I brought olivia upstairs after her nap, but Olivia didn't want to share Grandma, so she just walked up and wriggled her way onto the couch and Grandma's lap. Nobody seemed to mind very much, and Olivia was happy to just sit with Grandma and watch baby Kylie eat.

After all the kids were in bed, the grownups decided to have some kid time and all go out to the beach. To say it was stormy would be an understatement, as the rain was pelting our skin and the wind was strong enough that we had trouble standing up. However, that didn't stop us from all grabbing sweatshirts and going down to the beach. It was dark enough and stormy enough that we were all a little worried we would lose someone, so we did headcounts about every 10 seconds. Before we left the house, I thought we would be down on the beach for maybe 2 minutes, but it was really fun, and we just kept playing until we were all too freezing to continue. We had races against the wind (very slow races), and with the wind (more like leaping contests, the wind carried us most of the way). Bryan, Candy, and Jenaye even went down to the water, but I'm not that brave, so I have no picture evidence :).

In this first picture is Alex, me, Ben, Tasha, Emily, Bryan, Candy, Amber, Dan and Jenaye. Zach (representing Ali, Jon, Nikki, and himself) was taking the picture.

After the beach, we had to find a quick way to warm up, so we all went to Grandma's house and got in the hot tub. yes there were 9 people in there (Alex and I elected to just sit around the side), but it was all fine and good until someone decided to have a contest to see if the boys could correctly identify the girls' feet without looking...I would explain that except every explanation I can think of just sounds worse than none at all, so I'm leaving it at that.

The next day was Emily Day (AKA Emily's birthday), so we started out with our typical German pancake birthday breakfast before packing up to go home. Everyone else was spending the day in Newport before heading back to Philomath, but Alex and I left Lincoln City and went to Keizer for some more time with that family. This meant that we had all our stuff, as well as all our gifts, in the car. It was quite a tight fit, and Alex had a lovely time packing it all back up in the pouring down rain, but it was well worth it. We had a great time at the coast, and were all ready for the slightly (and only slightly) less chaotic Casqueiro house :). We love our family, and even just looking at these pictures reminds me of how blessed I am. I can't wait for the next all-family get together!