Rachel goes to the beach!

Today was our big beach adventure and except for the insane traffic both ways (2 1/2 hours going; 2 hours coming back, leaving at 9:15 at night! SHEESH), we had a wonderful time. To give you an idea of how great it was, Drew turned to me at one point and said, "this is the best Labor Day EVER."

So, we got to Cannon Beach around 2:30 (Rachel napped in the car, clad in her princess bracelet, earrings, necklace and ring; her crown slipped below her forehead and she looked so sweet asleep), snagged a free parking space (this is what it means to have two Parking Goddesses in the car) and immediately hightailed it to the sand only to find...Haystack Rock completely obscured by fog! In fact, the fog was so heavy that we could barely see 20 feet in front of us. But the water had formed into some tide pools, which meant it was actually walkable (and swimmable, although the air temperature was only 69) and Rachel LOVED wading and splashing in the water. She took both our hands, and we walked quite a way through the water and at one point slipped and fell backwards -- but instead of freaking out and crying, she just laughed. She and I raced to the sandbar and back a couple of times; she huddled in her towel and cuddled against me in the sun, then insisted on going out into the water again. Good thing we let her wear only her bathing suit; it got plenty of use!

We brought a cooler with some snacks, and had plums, string cheese and granola before Rachel decided we needed to play games in the sand. She and Drew buried my feet in the sand; she and I chased Drew, then Drew and I chased Rachel, and Rachel and Drew chased me; then we played ring-around-the-rosy; then we collapsed on our hands and knees; then Rachel and Drew pretended to go off to dinner, leaving me with my hands buried in the sand, and then Rachel decided to be a merciful king and free my hands. And so it went until around 6, when we figured we should leave, change into slightly warmer clothes (good thing I had thrown in a sweater for Rachel; in 88-degree Portland, Drew had looked at me and said I was insane; by dinnertime at the beach he was asking to borrow my fleece) and hunt for dinner.

On the way back we ran into a guy who asked if I had gone to Northwestern (I was wearing my purple and white sweatshirt and would like to note that NU is the only college I care about that actually won a football game yesterday) and then told us his wife's brother was a professor at the medical school there. We had a nice chat and just as we were saying goodbye, he looked at Rachel and commented, "adorable daughter. We noticed that you guys were playing with her, pretending to be elephants. We thought, 'they're good parents.'" We thanked them profusely.

The place we really wanted to go for dinner had a 2-hour wait, so we settled for a simple place where Rachel had part of a quesadilla, Drew had spaghetti and I had Dungeness crab legs (which are overabundant in Oregon right now. Unfortunately they still don't taste as good to me as lobster). For dessert we went to an ice cream place we like; Rachel expanded her ice cream culinary horizons by ordering mint chocolate chip (and finishing it all) and Drew and split a cone of Tillamook slide chocolate ice cream. Then it was into the car for the long, long, loong drive home.

Drew spent much of the day spinning stories for Rachel. "Tell me a STORY!" is her constant refrain these days. On the way home it was Rumplestilskin and "Jason and the Golden Fleece" (thank you, Mom, for introducing the wonderful world of Greek mythology to me) before she fell asleep in the back seat; Drew just now put her to bed without waking her up too much (it was 11:15 by the time we got home). Except for the traffic it was a fabulous day and we have vowed that next January we will make reservations for a cottage or hotel room or SOMETHING so we can get away for at least an overnight trip.