Many trips...

So despite having a new (colicky) baby, we managed to get out of the house more than I expected we would. We took two day trips to the coast before our coast vacation, a trip to the zoo, and a couple of short hiking trips. I'm not saying it was easy, but I'm glad we did it.

At the coast

Every day we were at the coast, we took Eli to the sandy beach that was only about 1 mile away. There was a trail that went from our house, which overlooked rocks and the waves (and tidepools filled with sea anemones), straight to this beach that went on forever. Michael and I ran there almost every day. Eli played in the sand, learned that sand doesn't take good (it tastes yucky, in case you didn't know) and he put his feet and hands in the water, which was freezing.

The day after the Oregon Coast Aquarium, we went to the Sea Lion Cave just north of Florence. It is the largest ocean cave in the world and it is home to many many sea lions that make weird farting-like noises all day. It was quite impressive, although Eli acted as though it he had seen it all before.

We also saw Haceta Head Lighthouse, but unfortunately we couldn't take a tour because those don't start until mid-March.

We drove up to a trail overlooking the ocean one evening and we watched the sunset from a little stone "castle" on the hill. Gorgeous.

We went out to eat in Yachats on Saturday night and heard a band. Eli was entranced. He just sat and stared at the two singers/guitar players and sometimes bobbed his head to the music. Hmmm.... might be a musician in the making.

Overall, it was a fantastic vacation and Eli has already asked us to go back to the coast. (OK OK, not really, but Mama would like to think so....)

Oregon Coast Aquarium

On our first full day at the Oregon Coast (last Thursday), we took Eli to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.

Holy cow, what a great place for kids! He walked through a huge tank filled with sharks and all kinds of fish. There were windows all around you and on the floor. He touched starfish and sea anemones in a tidepool display. He saw otters being fed fish and then swimming around in front of him. He saw seals and sea lions playing in the water. And he saw puffins, birds that are native to Oregon (but "puffins" also happens to be the same name as his favorite cereal, so he seemed a bit confused).

I'll post more about the rest of the trip tomorrow.

Random stuff...

Eli spent this past weekend with his Aunt Jessica and Uncle Ben. He even let them put him to bed on Saturday night! First time for Mama and Daddy to be gone during bath/bottle/book/bed time. We survived OK and Eli did splendidly. In fact, he slept the entire night Saturday night. Whew...

Eli now nods his head "yes" but doesn't seem to know exactly what it means. He definitely likes to shake his head "no" when we ask him to nod "yes," and we all laugh at his joke.

He is walking more and more each day, but he still crawls for much of his mobile periods. He still loves to go up the stairs and shut the gate at the top. Then he wants to go back down the stairs and do it all over again.

We are headed to the coast tomorrow and we are looking forward to showing him the Oregon Coast Aquarium, Sea Lion Caves, tidepools and sand!