Saturday May 29, 2021 Skate Park, Astoria and Long Beach

We had a full day today.  Marks family and my family left the house around 9 AM , and we didn't get back home until  11 PM.  Oh man, we had a blast today. Mark and Kim sure know how to have a fun time!!!  The Washington, Oregon area is  so green and lush.  At one time, we were driving down to Astoria and I looked up and counted 6 bald eagles flying over us.  There was an Eagle sanctuary there.  I've never seen so many bald eagles in the wild all together.  Stunning!!

Our first stop along the route was to a skate park!!  Yay!!  The park was called Rolling Freedom Park.  The ramps were right next to a lake that had homes lining it.  I imagine living there would be pretty darn amazing.  The kids all got out and rolled around.  Mark and Kim even tried it.  Mark showed off his moves and we were all dying laughing;))). He was trying to fling his scooter around like Asher and was seriously cracking us up.  

Work it Mark!!

When the kids were done scooting, we left to go to Astoria. Now. . If I were sophisticated, I'd tell you that we went to Astoria  because that is where Lewis and Clark ended up on their exploration of the new  land.  But, lets face it, I'm not sophisticated:))).

Here is the Lewis and Clark bridge that we drove over:)))

Once we got to Astoria, we had to make a stop at the Winco to use the facilities and to see the sea lions, that were loud.  

We also saw where Kindergarten Cop was filmed.  

The real reason why we hit Astoria was to complete our childhoods.  Mark and I grew up watching the movie Goonies.  This is the house that Goonies was filmed at;)). Hahahaha.  Here Mark is demonstrating the truffle shuffle:)) hahahahaha. I was dying laughing again.  

"Hey you guys"!!

We continued our journey across town and crossed a very long bridge to get back into the Washington side of the river.  We were heading to a peninsula and Mark called it a thumb 😂😂

Long Beach!  

Not Long Beach, California, but Long Beach, Washington!!  This place was fun.  They had lots of shops and plenty of "people watching" for us to do.  We did our touristy thing and shopped, then we got some grub. And when I say grub, I mean yummy, sinful, sugary, fried food.  

This is the shop where we got ice cream, fried elephant ears (scones) drenched in chocolate, pizza, corn dogs and lots of high calorie goodness:))). 

After our stomaches were full, we drove out onto SeaView beach to play.

It was windy and cold and the water was very cold, but that didn't stop the boys.  They were out skim boarding as if it were 100 degrees:)))

When the cold set in, we left to go back to Astoria to try and find a magnet.  We parked our trucks and walked all over with no luck finding a magnet that said Astoria.  But, we did find a bike shop.  Scotty almost bought Taj a new bike but then in the end he didn't.  While we were walking down the street, this dude on his bike came plowing through our group yelling, “Move! I live here”. Can you imagine how hard we all laughed?  We laughed so hard. 

Everyone was hungry so we grabbed grub and drove up to the highest point in Astoria to eat.  This place was called the Astoria Column.  The column had amazing pictures on it in honor of Lewis and Clark and their expedition.  It was beautiful.  The view we had of Astoria and the Columbia River was so perfect.  We all ate and the kids rolled down the hill.  My crazy boys did flips while the adults laughed and talked and boy was it fun.  

You would think that we would have headed back home now considering that we had almost a two hour drive to get back, but nope, we drove to the local skate park for more fun!!!  The park in Astoria was seriously great.  We were the only ones there so the kids basically had the park to themselves.  Asher and Graham and even Taj were pulling out some killer tricks.  

Around 9PM, we started our long drive home.  Yes we were tired but let me just say that today was a blast!!!  Mark and Kim so much fun to play with.