4th of July weekend

We headed out to Coast for the 4th. It took us nearly 5 hours because of all the traffic. Once we got settled we headed down to the beach. The kids had a blast sticking their toes in then running away from the waves. It was cold but we had a nice little fire to warm us up. The next morning was the 4th and we drove down to Newport to the Marine Hatfield Science Museum. It is a nice little museum with touch pools for the kids. We even got to see the Yellow Submarine which was cool since the kids love that song. Afterwards we went to Nye beach for a clambake. The kids had hotdogs and Ryan and I warmed up with some yummy clam chowder. They had a hula dancer there that invited Ellie and Caden to come hula with her. Then it was Ryan's turn to hula. It was hilarious and they all did a great job. By this time it was starting to get very cold and foggy. We headed back to the hotel for naps so the kids could stay up late and watch the fireworks. About 7 we got dressed in our warmest clothes that we brought, jeans and sweatshirts and headed over to Yaquina Bay to watch fireworks. It was really cold, barely 50 degrees, but the kids seemed to be having a good time. There were lots of people around us lighting off their own fireworks which helped pass the time. The fog kept getting thicker and there was a mist in the air. At 10 pm they announced fireworks were cancelled so we packed up the disappointed kids and went back to the condo. Sunday, we just lounged around inside, it was still cold and foggy. Monday we promised the kids we would take them back to the beach to build sandcastles. Again it was freezing and we didn't last long. We packed up and started for home. Maxwell started freaking out after an hour into the drive. So finally we had to pull over. There wasn't much around since we were in the national forest. We stopped at a campground which had an awesome day use picnic area. There was a little river, waterfall and a perfect little swimming hole and it was actually sunny and WARM (70). We had snacks then the kids stripped down to their underwear and went wading in the swimming hole. They even found a salamander. Unfortuantely Max started crying again once we got back in the car so it was a long painful ride home. Overall we had fun but we weren't prepared for the cold and it was kind of a bummer for the 4th of July. We have had much better weather in the spring and fall.