Our Little Cottage on the Coast

Neal and I actually planned ahead earlier this year (instead of waiting till September and going "dang, I wish we had rented a little place on the coast for a few days") and found a little cottage to rent near Newport. 

The boys love the Coast (who doesn't??) and Owen is an easier age to travel with now (I know, I know, people travel all the time with babies and young toddlers... but.... almost-3 is a much easier age in my book) so we got to spend 3 days in our little coast cottage!

We got to Newport on Wednesday at lunchtime and went straight to The Chowder Bowl for lunch, then walked around Nye Beach for awhile, since we couldn't get the keys to our cottage until 3pm. 

Kids are so good at finding things to entertain themselves... they loved the surfboard bench, and the little hills of "wocks" to climb. 

A little before 3pm we heading in the direction of our cottage, stopping at Fred Meyer to get all our groceries, then got to our house, unpacked, and hit the beach!

The cottage we got (and trust me it was TINY so it's a cottage, not a house) was one bedroom, with a futon and small loft with a twin bed, and was right on the beach. It had a staircase down to the sand, and only had a few other houses around it so we had the beach to ourselves, which was amazing. 

That's our little cottage at the top with the brown roof. The gray house next to us was empty the whole time we were there. 

We spent Wednesday afternoon and evening on the sand! It was so warm and nice, with no wind!

We went up and had dinner, cleaned the boys up and then settled in for the evening with a movie... but not before checking out the telescope at the house that was so cool it was instantly being fought over and then had to be put away and declared off limits. 

We had the best view from our porch, since the cottage was set so high up on a cliff (it was a pretty long walk down the stone steps to the beach) so the sunset was amazing. Just right for Mommy and Daddy to have some cocktails and chat... until two little boys in jammies wandered outside, because the little one was disturbing the big one in bed and they couldn't sleep. Sigh. Owen the Pest. 

After that we had to move around the sleeping arrangements. We wanted to have the boys in the one bedroom and Neal and I on the futon, but we ended up with Owen alone in the bedroom, Austin on the futon with Neal, and me upstairs in the loft in the twin bed. 

Thursday, we woke up to super clear skies... and WIND. Stupid wind on the coast. We went for a morning walk on the beach, and had to bundle up. The wind was making my ears hurt. 

Kids are resilient though, and had fun exploring, and writing in the sand. 

He wrote "I Love Mom" he's so sweet...

Thursday afternoon it had warmed up a bit but the wind was still strong, and still cold so I chickened out and sat on the deck at the cottage and read... which was awesome because I could see Neal and the boys down below on the sand, and was still able to yell down to them. So I wasn't totally isolated. They didn't seem to mind the wind, and kept busy! Screw all the fancy sand toys...they just need a shovel and some sticks and they are good to go. 

Thursday afternoon we got everyone cleaned up and headed in to Newport to walk through some shops and then get dinner. We found some cool shops by the aquarium, and there were plaster figures all over of pirates, and whales, and mermaids... all that corny stuff you love at the coast. 

As we were walking around, Austin grabbed my arm and started grunting and being all excited.. his second bottom tooth had just fallen out!

Exciting!!!

We headed to a pizza place for dinner... and on the way Owen fell asleep. We thought he'd wake up once we got to the restaurant.. but...nope. He sat down, fell fast asleep again, and didn't wake up the entire time. 

He woke right as we were wrapping up... thankfully he didn't miss out on ice cream for dessert (well, his case it was more like dinner, but whatever)... 

Friday we got up and went out for breakfast, and the boys got their own hot cocoas, which they were more excited about than their actual food. 

It was a cooler, more cloudy day so perfect for our plans of going to the Aquarium. Ok, not gonna lie... I wasn't super impressed with the Aquarium. It's much smaller than I remember, and at almost $100 for us to all get in, I was expecting to spend longer than 2 hours there.... but that's all it took for us to see everything several times over. 

The sharks were of course the big hit and we spent a long time watching them. 

The kids play area was awesome too, and Austin could have stayed there all day playing dress up. I think we let him for about 20-25 minutes and he still pitched a huge fit about having to take the costume off so we could move along. 

We made to sure to see Gramma's favorite, the jellyfish!!

When we got back to our cottage is was cloudy and drizzly but that didn't stop the boys from playing outside all afternoon. Neal made a fire on the beach and I went for some long walks up and down the sand (in the fog, which was eerie) looking for cool rocks and driftwood to take home, and the boys had adventure after adventure. 

I really do love how imaginative Austin is... he comes up with the craziest scenarios sometimes and can entertain himself for hours.

Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast then packed up and headed home. We definitely will spend a long weekend at the coast again next year, and will probably rent the same cottage. It was cheap, and small (but still plenty of room for us while the kids are little) and you couldn't beat the view and the "private" beach. I think we saw maybe 6 people on the beach the entire time we were there. It was so cool to have it to ourselves.