KAELI BIRTHDAY BEACH OUTING I

I surprised Kaeli on her birthday by taking her out to the coast. She had been asking me for some time when we were going to get to the coast. The day before we went out we were driving in the van and she asked again, and when I casually replied "probably" - she responded "In the next 2 days?" She knew that we were getting ready to leave for vacation, and that by the time she got back home the Summer would pretty much be over. I had to really work hard to keep my composure as I calmly tried to reply, knowing we would be out there for her birthday.
We got a DVD player installed in the van, and Kaeli watched movies the whole time we were in the car. I kept expecting the surprise to be blown as we drove by freeway signs and huge billboards. When we finally arrived by the decorative sign entering Lincoln City I told her to look out her window and then said "Happy Birthday!" - her response was "the golf course?" - I laughed hard and asked her to look at the sign - we really havent been out to the coast since last summer - so it really took her awhile to figure out where we were. She was very excited and I was thrilled that I had been able to keep the surprise.
We started our day with shopping at the outlet store. The first store was fabulous, as everythinig was on sale. The shoe store was a different story. After going into a couple shoe stores with no previous luck we were referred to a store that always carries shoes in "wide" styles. We felt we had scored big when the shoes we found were on sale AND "buy 1, get 2nd 1/2 off". We were shocked when the sales guy told us the one pair of shoes was actually not on sale, and had accidentally been put with ones that were ($70 vs $40).....I had to chat with Kaeli and she did some hard thinking before she decided to go ahead and get them. She really had "sticker shock" after that and even though we browsed through other stores she wouldnt buy anything else. During our conversation about shoes and the expense about things in general, I mentioned that really $70 for a high quality pair of running/walking shoes is swallowable. She came right back at me to say "$70 is not swallowable, $40 is swallowable, $70 is gag, $100 is choke and die!" I just laughed and laughed and tried to reassure her that it really would be ok. We also went to lunch at a place called Sambo's where we had a yummy lunch and had fun chatting. I think we enjoyed our time at the beach the most. Just playing together building a huge sandcastle and playing in the water and sand was tons of fun. After we were done we stopped at Cold Stone for ice cream - and what did Kaeli order - vanilla, of course. I got a yummy chocolate brownie mix. I also bought kaeli this cute little lip gloss in the shape of a quart of vanilla ice cream. It was so cute, and knowing she is our ice cream girl I just had to get it for her.
We really did have a ton of fun in all of our activities and I think that Kaeli had a great birthday.

The first thing Kaeli did was run right into the freezing cold waves. She loved running in and out of the water and getting water in her sand bucket for the sandcastle "moat"


Here is our finished sandcastle. It was way fun to figure out building, landscaping and decorating.