That's It...Vacation is Officially Over

Is it poor taste for 3 weary people to throw tantrums on the day that vacation is officially over? 'Cause that is what's going on in our house today!

Hubbie had to review notes on how to tie his noose, er, uh, excuse me, his necktie. My dear friend, J, and her family dropped off food on Saturday evening, so i've not yet had to see the inside of the grocery store since our return (Thank God!) Alas, today a trip will be needed...grrrr! Ri can't decide what to do first: tv or computer, while we wait for the library to open, to get books to appease her while she "slaves" through another round of grocery procurement with Mom.

I think we should have just stayed at the beach. :o)

We had a really great time there. Last Friday, we arrived late in the evening, as traffic was pretty snarled from here all the way to Olympia--that's at least 30 miles! We were able to unpack our ice chests and suitcases and return them to the car before we turned in at 11pm that night. We had a relaxing Saturday, waiting for family to arrive. Hubbie had to burn off some pent up work frustration--it seems that when he spend 14-16 hours a day at work most of the time, i notice it is hard for him to truely relax when he has nothing to do for a whole day. Takes him a couple days to unwind and return to silly Macmoose! So while Ri and i investigated the cottages extensively stocked kitchen and their toys and movies, Hubbie went for a 3 mile walk: north of us was a road down to the beach (the south end of the Moclips-P.B. Hwy) and he walked south from there to Pacific Beach and back from P.B. to the house, reading J.R. Tolkien the whole way. :o)

Saturday night, most of the family was gathered and Hubbie's Mom cooked hot dogs and everyone brought very tasty sides. Ri and i helped Grandma with clean up, and some of us hit the beach to play in the waves afterwards.

Hubbie and Ri getting down to some sand castle making business

L-R: Hubbie, Ri, Tony, Aunt Janice, and one of the twins is sitting behind her, Pete, Mary (behind Pete), Ann Marie, and Mom

enjoying the beach

Sunday morning, we went into town to Mom's hotel, so we could celebrate Mass. Since the town doesn't have a church, my brother-in-law consecrated a rolling butcher board in Mom's hotel for the alter (kinda neat knowing that for eternity there will be a little holy spot in room 11!), and he celebrated Mass in his socks. :o) Hubbie did too. My other b-i-l offered me an orange before Mass. Father Pete really focused on including the children in the Mass. They were given special instructions to draw a picture of a man in a boat, fishing, throwing food into the water for the birds in the sky. My 6 y/o nephew (who is also my Godson), drew his birds flying in formation because he had just seen the Blue Angels perform here. :o) It was completely refreshing to celebrate such an intimate Mass with family, however, i am thankful for the formalities at our church each week--i especially missed the Latin we sing (Sanctus and Agnus Dei.)

my nephew digging to China in his trademark blue boots

In the evening, we had everyone over to our cottage for burgers--the hotel was pretty cramped for 16 people.

Monday and Tuesday were more of the same, more beach playing, wave hopping, dinner eating.

We did have some excitement on Monday around 11am. Ri and i stayed behind at the house playing a never ending game of Monopoly, while Hubbie went for his walk again. All of the sudden we heard something that sounded like one of those fancy shmancy door bells at mansions: "bing bing bong bong, ding ding bing bong". You know the one? Sometimes you hear it in towns with clock towers too. Welp, A few seconds later, i see a van looking like a white Mystery Machine go by in front of the cottage with flashing lights.

Uh oh. Flashing lights can't ever be good, eh?

Without phone service and with spotty internet coverage, there was no way of finding anything out, so i just talked myself down from panicking, got dressed and threw some of our clothes in the basket near the door and prayed that Hubbie would make it home soon! I figured that i wouldn't worry too much, as 1/4 mile down he road was the volunteer fire dept., the tsunami evacuation assembly area was just a few feet in the other direction from the house, and we were up on the bluff.

Hubbie got home, running the whole way as he was down on the beach when he thought he heard a siren that sounded like the call to the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He heard an announcement that he thought said, "This is not a drill." Hence why he ran all the way home. :o) He took the laptop we were borrowing closer to town to get better access. He found out that there was an earthquake in Baja, so we gathered what we saw was the alert system put in place after that horrible Christmas Tsunami of 2004 in the Indian Ocean. After talking with family staying down in the hotel on the beach, the van was announcing that it was infact a test of their tsunami warning system. Whew!

Ri playing in the waves with Uncle Rob and cousin Dave (Dave is the Mini Me of his dad!)

Tuesday we hosted dinner with a lasagna feed. It was the last night that all the family was going to be in town together. Good chance for everyone to unload leftovers too.

We stayed a couple more days to round out the week. It was fortunate, too, because we got to see the trawlers out in the ocean one day.

Ri and Hubbie in the waves

And our last day there, the sun came out and we were able to see lots of interesting things that had washing up on the beach--jellyfish and kelp namely. I collected a ton of sand dollars for a Christmas project and we got to watch the sunset our last night there. Did you know that the sand dollar has a legend surrounding it that relates to Catholicism? Once i get all our treasures unpacked, i'll post about it.

All in all, a great trip. And one that i hope we have to look forward to for many years to come. It got Hubbie and i thinking about trying to find an old place there and fixing it up for our family, since it is such a place of significance for us.

Hope you all had a great week; i am really excited to sit down with a cuppa and catch up on all the cool posts you did while we were away! Toodles!