Beach trip...surprises all around!

I don't know how Evan fell for it, but he did. We (Grandma, Papa, Mark, and I had the car PACKED so full for 'a picnic,' yet Evan raised no questions. He really thought we were headed on a picnic. So we hopped on highway 26 headed to the coast, a route we've done plenty since he was born and he didn't say a thing. Hungry to eat our picnic, we pulled over to the only shady spot on the way that we could find...a roadside stand selling beef and salmon jerky. Nobody was there selling it, there were just tables and a canopy so ate, and laughed, and somehow knew a better spot was probably just a few miles down the road, and sure enough, a 'scenic viewpoint' was just 2 miles away. Oh well. It was good for a laugh, and the funny thing was that three cars stopped to buy jerky, and we had to explain that we were merely borrowing the shade...

After that we continued on and stopped at Camp 18, the ONLY restaurant on the highway, and let Evan walk around to explore the old firetruck, and logging equipment that is on display. When Evan was little, maybe 2 he only came up to the silver trim on the firetruck. Since that pic was taken, Evan has grown by leaps and bounds and the trucks has faded to a bleached out red.

We told Evan that we knew a short cut home that we had never done and that we'd by home soon. He bought that too. Next thing you know we're coming up on the Pacific coastline off highway 101 and he spots Haystack Rock and says, "We're at Cannon Beach!" Then Grandma let her surprise out of the bag...4 days, 3 nights at a beach condo to celebrate Evan's birthday.

So we all enjoyed the condo, the indoor heated pool and the hottest jacuzzi we'd ever been in. I slept with the windows open to hear the ocean all night long. We walked the beach, I flew a kite that we discovered in the garage of the beach house, we visited an arcade and played plenty of Ski-ball and Evan turned out to be the one that gets the best score consistently!!

One more surprise happened on our 3rd day which was his real birthday...Grandma ordered a cake to be delivered!! As it turned out, the 'cake' turned out to be Pierce and Mrs. Rike and they did bring the cake!! They joined us for the last 2 days/1 night of our trip. The boys were stunned and speechless to see each other, since Pierce hadn't been let in on the surprise either. It took no time for them to show their excitement and then we headed to the beach.