Birthday at the Beach

For Cody's 24th birthday his parents lovingly gave us a two night stay at the beach! It was our first over night trip we got to spend at the beach, just the two of us and I loved every single minute of it. We chose Lincoln City which is one of our favorites.
I found a sweet little hotel that will probably be our go-to place for Lincoln City called the Coho. Our priority was just having a view of the ocean from our room because really what's the point of staying at the beach if you can't see it right? I haven't stayed in a hotel with as good of a view of the ocean as we had. Literally our window in our room (which was pretty big) was just all ocean. And you could open up the window from both sides so we got to fall asleep and wake up to the sound of the waves.

cute modern decor / yes that was our view / on warmer days they light fires in the evening time

the view from the window also the tide pools we went to

Our first day was spent mostly at outlets. I literally can't buy clothes at full price because I know I can get good deals other places so outlet shopping is my favorite. And Cody found some good birthday presents for himself. We stopped at the Woodburn Outlets first on the way down, grabbed lunch at Mo's in Lincoln City and were entertained by some sea lions messing with seagulls in the bay that the restaurant is on then hit the Lincoln City outlets. We were waiting to go to the hotel until later to try and get a good deal on a room. It's a little trick that Cody learned from his parents.

The next day we got up semi early/early for us (8:30) so we could go down and get our breakfast and make the most of the day. Next to Lincoln City is a little town called Depoe Bay.

 

One of my favorite parts is to see the spouting horns. The town is basically one street with some cute beach-y shops on one side and the other side is a wall of rocks, that when the big waves come rolling in, crash into it and they "spout" up. You actually want to be there during bad weather because you'll get bigger waves and bigger spouts so us going during the winter months is really optimal. But really when you're at a Northwest beach there's only like a month during the year where you have a really good chance of it being sunny. So really when it's gray and on and off rainy you feel more at home at the beach than if it was 70 and sunny. It's something that I've grown to love about our beaches. It's not the classical go swimming and sun bathing at the beach experience. It's the wear a couple of layers and maybe risk numbing your feet for a while walking in the water experience.

Depoe Bay Bridge

isn't that just the cutest birthday boy you've ever seen?! / we found a whale!

After that we walked just a block down the street to a little Thai place Cody had been wanting to try. Thai food may possibly be my favorite cuisine for several reasons. One- I have never had bad Thai food. Two- You can expect to pay the same price it seems, no matter where you are (about $8 for lunch a little more for dinner). Three- It always has a light healthy feel to it (unlike Chinese where sometimes you feel like poop afterwards). And four- It makes my husband happy.
After lunch we took advantage of our hotels jacuzzi and sauna and pool. We had the place to ourselves which is always nice not to have echo-y screams bouncing off the walls as you try and relax. Then back to the room to just hang out. We watched another movie and tried really hard not to just take a 3 hour nap.
Then at long last we made our way out to the beach. We would've gone down earlier but we wanted to see that tide pools that are there and low tide wasn't until 1:34 so we waited until later to go to get the most out of it.

beach access road / oceanlake sign / looking out to the great abyss

Cody and I have a little joke about when we go to the beach that our love brings the sun out. Every time we go it's always a gray cloudy day but as soon as we get onto the sand the sun comes out. No joke. We never really expect it but it always happens. So of course the whole day we were out it was rainy and drizzly and a bit cold but once we went down to the tide pools the sun came out.
I've been to the tide pools a bunch but I love them the same every time I go. I really love all the different textures you can find.

like these (click to enlarge)

We also happened to go right around sunset so that made for some pretty awesome pictures.

Like this one

this was a hermit crab i tried to pick up until i realized there was a homeless crab attacking my hand/the crab with the shell; see if you can spot the one without a shell

cool story: we saw this seagull with something in his mouth and watched as he would fly up about 10 ft then drop his catch on the sand and then on the sharp rocks until he got it open and ate it / the muscle he broke and ate the guts out of

 Then to end a perfect day we ate at Cody's favorite beach restaurant called Pier 101 that is known for their fabulous seafood and prime rib and also the place we ate minutes after we were engaged. It's the thing that made this trip a little extra special. A little over a year ago those tide pools were the exact place Cody proposed. It's nice to go back to places and see how far you've come. And I'm excited for all the other times we'll get to go back to places like this and have more adventures and memories to look back on.