Vampire Diaries

packing up for our trip. did I forget anything? swimsuit? check. Siena's doll? check. Baby? check.

The posh little village of Seabrook

We went to the coast this weekend to celebrate my birthday. We stayed in B&B in a little coastal town called Pacific Beach. We left really early in the morning, around 5:30, and got there around 12 or 1. Too bad the weather was so cold, overcast and foggy. We weren't able to spend too much time on the beach. But we got to talk to Paul and Mim, the owners of the B&B. I took the girls on a little ride down the coast to the tiny village of Seabrook, this new posh town, where we found a great playground for Siena, in 53 degree weather. Brrr!
Thad's been on the look-out for some "Asian fit" sunglasses that would fit his Asian-sized head for a little while now. He did some research and found out that Oakley has a line of Asian fit sunglasses, so we did some more research, found an Oakley outlet store in Marysville, north of Seattle. To get there from Pacific Beach, we could go back the way we came and through Seattle, and hit Seattle traffic, which could delay us an hour or more, or we could go the same distance, but north and around by the beach, which would happen to take us through Forks. Thad was so excited when he found out we would be driving through Forks! ;)
The town itself was small, and I'm sure could have once been described as charming, but now inundated with tourist from the Twilight madness, is now a complete tourist trap- super corny, kitschy, and tacky. Pretty much what we expected, in short.
On the way there, we tried to take a "short-cut" through an Indian reservation (hey! The GPS told us to go through there!), and ended up going through some seriously scary terrain, through an dirt road that was rutted out with overgrown fauna threatening to devour us, huge mud puddles, and a WAY scary bridge, that was just 2 slabs of metal placed above a river. We kept going until we saw a van that had got stuck in the mud and slid off the path, with orange tape tied around the side mirror, across the road to the nearest tree, and a couple of huge logs that had fallen across the road behind it. End of the trail. We turned back, having gone 16 miles round-trip, which took us close to 2 hours. Not a great 2 hours, but definitely memorable.
We stopped at Ruby Beach after we got back on the main road. It was one of the absolute coolest beaches I have ever been to! It had the coolest rock formations. Not much sand, but perfect skipping stones littered the beach. Apparently at low tide, it has some of the best tide pools around. Unfotunately, we were there at the wrong time of day to see that. But the beach was still pretty awesome, again, despite the cold, foggy weather.
After taking a ferry back to the "mainland" of WA, we headed up to the Marysville Oakley store, where we found out that you have to order the special "Asian fit" sunglasses online. Bummer!
So we drove down to Seattle, and spent the night with our friends Jen and Rahul, or "hulio", as Siena calls him.We had a great time, eating AMAZING seafood at a Puerto Rican restaurant, "La Isla", and hit up H&M.
Thad did all the driving, what a trooper! The girls did pretty well most of the time, despite getting sick of their car seats after hours of being strapped down. Now we need a vacation from our vacation!