A wave!

Early this morning we saw my 12 (almost 13) year old niece Alyssa off to the airport. Alyssa came to visit us for about 11 days or, as Gabriella would say "This is my cousin Alyssa and she flew all the way from Iowa... by herself." Can you tell Gabriella was impressed with the solo flight? We really enjoyed spending time with her for the past 11 days and we'll all miss her. Gabriella has already requested that we look at pictures of her all day so to "remind us of her."

We capped off Alyssa's visit with a fun overnight trip to the beach. Weather on the Oregon coast is less than predictable. It is pretty darn chilly more often than not and sometimes downright cold even in the summer. For this trip we were excited to find that it was just warm enough to let the kids actually play in the water. We all had a blast. It was Alyssa's first time seeing the ocean (any ocean) and it was Juliana's first time to really romp in it (she was 6 months old during our last ocean visit.)

Juliana was able to add a few new words to her vocabulary.... wave and ocean. Letting Juliana get into the water was a lot of fun because she would shout "A wave!... Yay!... Go!...One more!" etc.... every single time. However, you have to watch that small girly like a hawk. As proved by the hotel pool and the ocean, Juliana has NO water fear. Gabriella also enjoyed the sand and water, but she had a healthy respect for "white waves" and did a pretty good job of observing our family rule of, "No deeper than your knees." Mostly, she wanted to build sand castles and decorate them with shells.

I'll have pictures eventually, but for now.... some video. (Do I get some applause for that? You ask and I deliver. Even if I have to use Alyssa's camera to do so.)

Alyssa opted to wear a fleece jacket over her swimsuit. So maybe it was a bit chilly, but in comparison to our past trips it was downright warm. This video was right after she got hit by a nice big wave.... it turns out that bending down to inspect something in the ocean is risky. Jonathan is the one who is dying laughing.

And a cute picture I snapped of Alyssa on her camera...

Thanks for visiting Alyssa! We love you!