Oregonian Vacation, Last Day

The first part of our last full day at the coast was spent at the Seaside Aquarium. We'd initially wanted to make the drive to the more impressive one in Newport, but we decided we'd spent enough time on little excursions already, so much that the kids were sick of the car, so we settled for this one. It wasn't bad.


We fed the seals. Look at those eyes.



They were so cute.


I don't know what Ringo was smoking when he said he'd like to be in an octopus's garden. I can't think of anywhere freakier. Imagine getting mauled by an octopus. . . No thanks.



Sea creatures are so peculiar.



And fascinating.

I can't help but wonder how it would feel to get strangled by a seastar.

After the aquarium we wandered back to the hotel. Cora, Jane and I wanted to walk to the nearby shops to pick out some souvenirs. Ryan and Oliver stayed behind to relax.

We looked at a few touristy stores. Both the girls chose stuffed animals; Jane got a cute red crab, and Cora got a grayish seal.

Then we went into The Buzz, a fantastic candy store I'd seen the first day. I knew Ryan wouldn't want any part of it, and I didn't want to feel rushed if he'd been waiting outside, so that's the main reason I planned a mandatory outing with just the girls and me. =)


They had a copious case of various enticing treats. Notice the top row. My brain thinks the tag for 'stout truffle' says 'trout truffle'. I should have excitedly asked the lady about those.
Can you guess which one I picked? Although the trout option was mighty tempting, I settled on the pink cupcake truffle. It. was. delectable. So creamy and heavenly inside. Not overpoweringly sweet. Just right. I wanted more, but I refrained.


Look how cute!

Cora picked a sizable peanut butter cup and Jane got a chocolate covered s'more.

Look at those fat tubs of circus peanuts! I'm kind of kicking myself for not grabbing one. I wonder if they taste any better than the bagged variety.

Like a kid in a candy store...

It was raining considerably all day, so we ducked into the carousel mall to eat our chocolaty treasures. Then we eventually made our way back to the hotel.

We'd passed these beauties several times, and at last I paused to capture them on camera.

The rest of the day was spent just hanging out. It got late sooner than we knew it. Hungry, we drove around in search of food. I think it was 9-ish when we decided to eat at DQ.

Then, once again, we went back to the hotel to begin wrangling our belongings together so we could depart for home fairly early the next morning.

We did hit the road sometime before 8:00, and on our way home we took a slight side trip to stop at the cemetery where Becky's grave is. =( She is buried next to her brother Ben. Her parents had a stone made with both of their names together.

It was raining quite a bit, though you can't tell.

It says "brother and sister" on the bottom. And that's a kitten with a ball of yarn above her name. It still makes me so sad to think of everything she didn't get to do before she left. I had so much hope for her. It's hard to believe it's been almost a year.

We had a safe, uneventful drive home.

The trip to Oregon was a good one. We had fun and got to see some marvelous expanses of nature.