A Beach Day

As I so often do, I went to the beach on my birthday earlier this week.
It was a gorgeous sunny day.
But like most days on the Oregon coast, it was windy, and we kept our jackets or sweatshirts on all day. Thankfully it is August and we could wear shorts with minimal goosebumps.

This time we went to a 'new' beach (ie. one we hadn't been to that I can remember)

It has a huge sand dune mountain that the kids went running for as soon as we got there.

I made it up about half way with my youngest. Even that was a wonderful view.

The rest of the crew made it to the top and so they took pictures of the other side for me.
Maybe next time I will make it up there. It's not so easy when you're as old as I am.

After lunch we tried another beach, one you can drive out onto with your auto. 
And so we did.

And it was a thrill for the passengers as well as the driver.
We spent the rest of the afternoon playing on the beach, digging, running, watching the waves, huddling behind the pickup out of the wind.

 

 We finished the day off with a trip to Mo's - a favorite place of ours to eat. I managed to feed all of us supper for under $20! That included dessert.
And we capped the entire birthday with cake found in our refrigerator when we got home - somehow my sister managed to sneak it in there. So we had my once a year chocolate All American Costco cake, and my sister's wonderfully delicious homemade chocolate cake. I've probably gained as many pounds as my age this week.