Our Seaside Vacation

Last week we enjoyed our summer tradition of a vacation to Seaside, Oregon. The beach has been one of my favorite places to visit since I was a young child. The Oregon coast is amazing, and I never tire of visiting. My parent's in law have a wonderful beach house in Seaside, so it is great to visit Seaside, and know that there is a comfortable home to stay at while we are there, and a place were we can bring our two wacky labs along with us. Seaside is fun because the beaches are so close and downtown Seaside is full of shopping and fun activities, and wonderful places to eat.

Here we are for a day at the beach, we love the beach on 12th street because there is a nice amount of beach to dig in, and lay around on, there are grassy hills to explore, and the ocean is shallow for a very long distance, so it is pretty safe to play in. In the picture below I am reading, one of my favorite things to do on a warm day at the beach. Sarah is weaving grass together, and Joe is enjoying the holes that Gary and the kids dug.

Here Gary, Sarah & Joe are digging - they dug four deep holes that had interconnected tunnels under the sand- it was pretty cool.

The kids took some nice pictures of Gary and me.

Every year since the children where toddlers, Daddy is buried in the sand!





We chose to set up our beach blankets near this really funky shaped driftwood- the kids thought that it looked a lot like a ROUS (Rodent of unusual size from the Princess Bride).





From this angle it looked a bit like a dolphin also.





All of us enjoy taking pictures of each other and all of the beautiful scenery around us.





After we were nice and warm from a morning lounging and playing in the sand we headed down to the ocean- here Joe leaves his mark in the sand.




It is so fun to jump over the waves, I could spend hours doing this!






Here Sarah explores a little inlet, we had fun walking all through this.


The grassy hills are very fun to explore.




After a long day playing at the beach we have a favorite place that where we always eat dinner - Bigfoot's. They have some of the best prime rib ever, as well as very tasty fries and onion rings. The menu is in the form of a newspaper, filled with tales of Bigfoot from around the Pacific Northwest.




I had to get our picture with the Bigfoot carving at the entrance to Bigfoot's!








One of the days of our trip we spend mostly in downtown Seaside- we start out with breakfast at Pig'N Pancake. I always have their Buckwheat pancakes, the boys got blueberry pancakes, and Sarah got some very yummy blueberry crepes. All of their food is super good!!





After breakfast we shop for souvenirs at some of our favorite shops, I always buy a few new woven beach blankets, I also found some great carved sailors for my bookcase, the kids found some fun treasures as well. We had a lot fun looking in our favorite toy shop. A few years ago a wonderful candy shop opened up called The Buzz- filled with old fashioned candy, novelty candy, old fashioned soda, fudge and salt water taffy. The buzz is one of our favorite places to visit.





Here are the kids picking out some of their favorites to bring home, we all have fun at this store, so many fun choices.








After shopping, we head to the arcade and spend a couple of hours playing video games, skee ball & air hockey. I myself love the old games from the 80's and an old fashioned pinball machine.








We finish up our trip to downtown Seaside with Elephant Ears, Gary's favorite!!




After dinner we head back out to watch the sunset, while we were waiting we explored some little tide pools.










The sunset is always so beautiful!!





After the sun set Gary set the camera timer and got a picture of all of us.




On the last day before we left, we visited the Aquarium and fed the seals, they were so cute!









Sarah and Joe loved all the tricks that the seals could do, we all thought they reminded us of our dogs. The baby seals were also very darling.








Inside the aquarium we saw a lot of beautiful sea life, this Octopus was very interesting, he kept changing color from this red to a grayish color, very interesting creature!!





The gift shop at the aquarium was fun to visit, it has looked just like this ever since I was a child, I have loved visiting this shop over the years. Sarah found some very cute socks for her sock collection.







We also decided to bring our Lab Zoey out for her first trip to the beach, we can't bring our older dog because she doesn't like being around other dogs and has a very bad hip, she was content to lounge around the beach house. Zoey is still learning to behave on a leash, but she did pretty well, she loved the sand, the kids taught her how to dig, which was very funny to watch. We then took her down to the water, which she absolutely loved, she ran in circles around Gary and bounded through the waves. She had so much fun, and we had fun watching her!





We had one last look at the ocean, and then headed back to the beach house to pack up and return home.



Our trip was wonderful, and very relaxing. We feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to visit this beautiful place.


O Lord God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O Lord, and your faithfulness surrounds you. You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them. Psalm 89:8-9

Early August Garden & Stuffed Zucchini

Green Beans, Zucchini, and Wishes- that is what we have been harvesting in our garden this last week. The veggie garden is in full swing- which we love. Everyday before dinner we go out to the garden and pick a large bunch of vegetables for dinner.

The green beans are wonderful, we pick a big bowl and between the four of us eat all of them at dinner. Steamed and served with a drizzle of melted butter.







The zucchini is also doing very well, we pick the small ones for eating, steamed with a drizzle of butter as a side dish. We also let some get nice and big. I like to shred these for zucchini breads and cakes, as well as zucchini fritters. Here's a link to my Zucchini Fritter Post. http://aprilshomemaking.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html

Here are the zucchini I picked today.

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Another of my favorite recipes for extra large zucchini is stuffed zucchini. This was our dinner tonight.

Here is the recipe:

Stuffed Zucchini

1 Large Zucchini
1 lbs ground meat (hamburger, turkey or sausage, vegetarian meat substitute)
2 1/2 cups of cooked rice
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
1 large can 28 oz. crushed tomatoes
1 can 14.5 oz. stewed chopped tomatoes with Italian seasoning
1-2 cups chopped mushrooms
1 medium chopped onion

Cut zucchini in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds with a spoon. Set both halves in a large roasting pan.









Brown meat along with chopped onions, drain. Then stir in mushrooms and cook with sausage and onion for 5 minutes, stir in cooked rice, and can of stewed tomatoes and half the cheese. Fill zucchini with mixture, top with the rest of the cheese, pour can of crushed tomatoes around base of zucchini along with 1 cup of water.



Cover with foil and bake at 400 F. For 1 hour or until zucchini is tender and cooked. Slice and serve with some fresh sourdough bread. This can be made without meat or meat substitute - just use a little more rice and mushrooms. Great way to use those zucchinis.



The rest of the garden is doing well, the jalapenos are just about ready to pick as well as a few of my other pepper plants.



Here is a picture of our little sugar pumpkins growing. One has climbed up the garden fence and is happily growing there.




The cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen, here is a picture of my Sun Gold Cherry tomatoes, this is our favorite cherry tomato.


Our early girl tomatoes are a little behind this year due to the cool summer we have been having, the temperatures have been up though, so I am hoping they will still do okay.

Our rose bush suffered from puppy damage earlier this year, but we finally got a very pretty rose to bloom!


Our Nasturtiums are beautiful growing up a blueberry branch.



Here is our small little corn patch- I normally plant a full raised bed of corn, but this year I wanted more room for squash and pumpkins, but I still like to see a little corn growing in the yard come fall- so I planted some in a tub, and considering the small space it is doing as well as I thought it would. We might get a couple ears of corn, but even if we don't we will still have our little fall patch of corn stalks.



And lastly the Big Weed update- The beautiful thistle that we have been following all summer long has gone to seed. Here's a link to a previous post about our "Big Weed" if you want to see what it looked like when it was fully grown.
http://aprilshomemaking.blogspot.com/2011/07/blueberries-thistle.html .

"Wishes" are all over the ground.



Here is a "wish" in the sky.



The bees love it!




One last look before it is time to dig it out. :(



Thinking our neighbors may not appreciate this beautiful weed as much as we have, we have decided that it is time to take it out. So tonight after the bees mostly went to sleep, Gary tackled removing this beautiful giant plant.





Goodbye Big Weed- we really enjoyed watching you grow all summer long!



Gary got this giant thistle all chopped down and into the can.

Before we removed our thistle, every time the wind blew, it picked up a wish or two- I used to love wishes as a child, I would run around our yard to catch one and make my wish and release it back out into the sky. I love watching them float through the air. We each made one wish before Gary dug out our thistle weed. We saved a whole bag full of "wishes" for later.

All the wishes flying around here have got an old Mother Goose nursery rhyme stuck in my head, I grew up learning lots of nursery rhymes, I will leave you with this fun little rhyme.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
If turnips were watches, I would wear one by my side.
And if "ifs" and "ands" were pots and pans,
There'd be no work for tinkers!