We arrived just in time to help decorate the tree for Christmas in July.

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We hung our bird feeder right outside our window and not only did we attract some cute little chickadees but also chipmunks and squirrels! We've had such fun watching them learn how to get into the feeder for treats.

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We just love our Oregon coast sunsets!

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The Oregon Coast Aquarium has a vast array of marine life and plants native to this area. Since Noah was with us, we decided to visit this beautiful indoor and outdoor 39-acre site for the first time.

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We went to "Passages of the Deep", a 1.32-million gallon exhibit with some 3,500 sea creatures including sharks. We walked through a 200-foot underwater walkway with fish swimming over our heads! Noah's favorite place though was the tide pools where he was able to touch sea stars, anemones, cucumbers and even feed an abalone some kelp!

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Noah in a shark jaw!

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Depoe Bay's Whale Watching Center is a great place to learn about and watch the whales as they make their trek along the coast. We not only got to hear whale facts but also got to touch things like this baleen.

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How exciting it was to not only get to see the whale spouts but we got to see one come out of the water.

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The Yaquina Head Lighthouse tower is 93-feet high and was first illuminated in 1873. Earlier in the week when we went to see my favorite lighthouse, it was shrouded in fog so all we could show Chris and Noah was the bottom of the building.

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Chris gave Noah his first lesson on how to cut kindling. Our little boy is getting older!

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Enjoying the fire.

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One of my favorite McCullough bridges is this dramatic, soaring steel arch that spans the Yaquina River just before the river empties into the Pacific.

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Inland about 20-miles is the Chitwood covered bridge. The original bridge was built in 1893 to span this section of the Yaquina River.

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The small town of Toledo was our next stop. We spent a little time at the their market which gave us an opportunity to see this wonderful mural depicting the history of the town. It was interesting to see that there is still a working lumber mill here.

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Toledo has a wonderful little railroad museum run by volunteers. They have refurbished this neat little speeder as well as many other railroad things. We got to go into a post office car where we learned how years ago they threw out the mail bags as they slowly went through a station where there wasn't a stop.

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The Hatfield Marine Center is part of Oregon State University. The visitor center has aquariums, interactive exhibits, tide pools and this incredible octopus. We were surprised to see how active he was.

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We sure enjoyed wandering around looking at all the different fish they had in the aquariums. We loved the brilliant colors of some of them.

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Noah and Grammy had fun beachcombing although Noah spent much more time in the frigid water then Grammy did!

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