Ocean + sand = very happy & very dirty kids!

We're back from a very successful first beach trip! The weather was typical Oregon coast (ie terrible) but we did have one day of sunshine and, really, the kids couldn't care less about the weather.  They were completely bowled over by their first view of the huge expanse of sand and water.  Will was a little afraid of the waves at first ("what's so noisy?")  but Kate actually went right to dip her toes in the beyond freezing water.  The morning after we arrived, we woke up to sun and the tide was out so we went down to the beach and ran, ran and ran somemore in all the little pools of water left behind.  Kate just kept yelling, "I love this!  I LOVE this!" so I'm guessing she had an okay time.  I think they were outside for about 5 hours straight that first day, which made for some great nights of sleep.  The next couple days were cloudy and pretty chilly, but the kids still dug, climbed and ran themselves (of Grandma Connie and me) ragged.  The inside time made for some pretty mean games of Candyland and hide 'n seek.  All around a great time--thanks, Grandma!  But, I must say, I was glad to get back to the warm summer weather in Sisters (after all, our summer is so short that it's hard to miss even a day of it!)  The minute we got home, we filled up the pool and all jumped in.  The kids and I are were very happy to see Ryan, who probably missed us and enjoyed the quiet after work in equal measure (can't blame him here!)  On Sunday, I got to run the McKenzie River trail with some girls from town.  It's 25 miles of amazing gorgeousness and I'm feeling pretty darn lucky to have made friends that do this sort of thing for fun.  I'm hoping Ryan and I can go back soon.  In all, we're having a great summer so far!  This weekend, Kate and I are off for a girl's trip to Grandpa Mac's while Ryan and Will stay home to "do some boy stuff."  We've never done that before, but I'm thinking they'll both enjoy being only kids for a few days!