Cheese Factories & Ocean Side- Cons. Adv. Part II

Onward West!

We continued our journey west, the kids wanting to go directly to the beach. Until we brought up the cheese factory and ice-cream that we always get no matter what time of day, no matter what we ate and how soon we just ate, or how soon we plan to eat(Heidi & Rick, I get the PB&Choc every time, I can't help myself).

First stop is the Blue Heron Cheese Factory. This is a little cheese facotry that makes Brie. I LOVE BRIE. I didn't before my stay in Belgium, but compared to all the stinky cheese they eat, brie became my favorite. Actually I adore most cheese(I think there was only one really really stinky kind I wasn't able to stomach), and have no idea how I gave birth to a son who hates cheese, but I have hope one day he will realize what he has been missing. If you have always wanted to stop here, but never have, I suggest you do. I wanted to stop here for years and years. Jeremy and I finally did on our anniversary weekend last September and we LOVE it. We took the kids back last winter on a weekend at the coast and they had fun feeding the Llamas. Leila loves llamas now and wants one for a pet. I might look into that someday, maybe we can sell our lawn mower? Anyway, they have an old London Bus out front, and Nathan just got a "Victoria" english bus from Grandma Conser who is back from her cruise, so we needed to visit that after we fed their livestock some oats and stuff. Leila wasn't so sure about letting them lick her hands, but Nathan didn't have a problem. He also feed one of the goats the plastic bag on accident. OOPS! We ran inside to tell them, but they were OK with that. SO- if you like brie, check it out sometime- they have several flavors to sample and if you buy some the usually have fresh french bread to go along with it. YUM. http://www.blueheronoregon.com/

Next stop: ICE CREAM! And cheese curd- or squeeky cheese as the rest of us like to call it. We did our walk around the plant, walked thru the sample line, bought our squeeky cheese and beef sticks, then went to have ice cream. But, as we drove up the parking lot seemed unusally full. They were having an Old Time Car Show! Nathan just about DIED and WENT TO HEAVEN! We had to walk thru it. Nathan kept saying "Holy Cow!" maybe because we were in cow country? He would stop dead in his tracks to point at a really cool car and yell out his new catch phrase. Made a few old timer men shed a tear at this pure unadulterated love of cars. Leila was happy they had a pink car for her. So the Tillamook Cheese Factory was in its usual form, and then some with the help of the car show. http://www.tillamookcheese.com/VisitorsCenter/

Last stop was finally the beach. Our desired stop was Pacific City, but they had some cycling thing ending there so we were not allowed. So we headed up to Oceanside, and it was one of those perfect days on the coast. We loved every minute of it. We had a hard time keeping our little fish(Leila) out of the water. She was ice cold, but running around so much she wanted to keep going. Nathan dipped his toes in a few times and managed to get his shorts soaked, but then decided he had more fun creating race-tracks in the sand with his cars. Both kids found some rocks and shells. I found a pretty little agate. I made a few sand sculptures, but I did not take a picture of them because they were not good, but what a fun relaxing thing to do. The one good sand sculpture both Jeremy and I worked on included Miss Leila, as she sang the Little Mermaid song . Funny, a little toe or two kept poking out.

We decided to do some more exploring after changing out of wet clothes(And making people mad at us for waiting for our parking spot when we weren't even leaving-- ha ha). They have a tunnel thru the mountain and we did more exploring. What a wonderfully beautiful day to spend together as a family. We enjoyed every minute together. We did not stop for Seafood on the way home... much to my, Jeremy's and Leila's dissapointment(no, Nathan did not care), but we will enjoy that another day. Leila made a comment today that made us chuckle. She said," Mommy, if you have another baby, I hope that kid will like the beach." I replied, me too.

I love my family. I am so thankful we get to spend days like this together. We love spending time together, and its so fun to have children so sweet, smart and healthy. Even better I get to enjoy them with my sweetheart, Jeremy. How blessed am I?