Our 5th Anniversary

For our 5th anniversary, we went away for a nice weekend in Lincoln City! One of Nelson's groomsmen's parents (got that?) own and rent out a house and they were nice enough to give us the 'family rate' for their gorgeous house. It was a good deal! We hope to spend a lot more time there in the future! Nelson took off Friday (last vacation day for awhile, he's saving up sick and vacation for paternity leave when baby comes, a wonderful blessing, he should be able to get at least 6 weeks!!!), so we went Thursday night through Saturday. (the house was already reserved for Saturday night. Here's the house:



I told Kalaya that the front door said 'welcome' and for the rest of the trip, we had to hear over and over (and OVER AND OVER) how, 'It says welcome! It says welcome!' It was pretty cute. I wonder if she'll recognize the word out of context in the future?


Thursday night we went out to dinner at Mo's (yeah, about as touristy as you can get, but I was craving a cheeseburger and fries and theirs are yummy!) and then walked down to the beach, which was less than a block from our house. She played with her sand toys and then wanted to test the water. It was actually a really nice evening, even for the Oregon Coast, pretty warm, only a little windy and the water actually wasn't ice cold. So, Daddy let her put her feet in and she wanted to go further and further and LOVED the water. We had to drag her back. It actually felt pretty good!



Saturday morning she got up VERY early (around 6:30, I think), because the master bedroom was very bright with four windows. She had breakfast and was asleep on the couch within an hour and slept for another 2 1/2 hours after that. (we are not morning people at our house. A typical morning for her starts between 9 and 9:30) A quick lunch and down to the beach! It was perfect weather and she dug, searched for rocks, buried herself, ran around and went in the water (with Daddy's help) to her heart's content. This was followed by another afternoon nap (the morning one really was just finishing off her night, she'd gone to bed late Thurs night) and then out to dinner at a local brewery, where I had some delicious shrimp!


The hot tub was also a big success, especially with Daddy! (I didn't go it, of course...sacrifices for pregnancy!)


Saturday morning was packing and getting ready to leave, but not without breakfast first!


We finished off the trip with a stop in Salem to see Grandma (Nelson's mom) and drove home on Saturday. Sunday Nelson and I had an anniversary celebration during Kalaya's nap, while Oma took over for a bit. We went to a yummy lunch at Benihana and a movie.


Yup, our daughter is too young for a movie, we went to Winnie the Pooh's latest by ourselves. : )

We know that many people/couples think it's important to have time away just the two of us, but we don't feel that way. We just aren't the kind of parents who go on vacation without our whole family, at least not at this point in our child's life. We understand why some think that's important, but we know we'll have years and years to be alone. We treasure every moment with our whole family! We feel that our relationship is plenty strong enough without dropping the kid off at the grandparents so we can be alone. At least, not for more than a few hours. Definitely a personal preference that each family has to make for themselves!