Seventh Anniversary Celebration

Saturday (August 7th), Kyle & I had a wonderful day, just the two of us. We picked up our great babysitter, Ashley, at 7:15 a.m., and headed out.

We started things right by eating breakfast at Bakery D'Amour, just to make sure our day would be filled with love:). Then we headed down to Albany to tour a recently completed Adair Home (just thinking ahead here).

Then we drove to the Oregon Coast, via a couple stops along the way. Here is a panoramic shot (it looks kind of small on here) of the Red Bridge, a restored 1914 covered bridge just east of Lincoln City. (Side story: this is a tiny, out of the way, tourist site, just off Highway 18, the main road from Lincoln City to Portland. Right after we pulled up, a lady came over to us and said their car had just been stolen 10 minutes before. Her and her sister were on a three month road trip from North Carolina and had stopped at the bridge and left their keys in the car while they looked around. A young girl pulled up, parked a truck/trailer, walked around a little, then went and got in their car and drove off! They didn't realize what was happening until their car was pulling away. Turns out the truck had been stolen about an hour earlier in a town about 20 miles north. Everything they had brought on the trip, except their camera, was in the vehicle! I hope they recovered it!)

I liked this cute, dilapidated bird house that was in the foilage next to the Red Bridge.

Next we had lunch at a much-raved about cafe, in the "podunk" town of Otis. This restaurant has a total of five tables and a bar, and to use the restroom you have to walk through the (very small) kitchen to the back (yuck). But their food is raved about by everyone who has eaten there. I commented to the people sitting next to us that it was time they expanded and they said, "They did," and pointed to the picnic tables/tarp covering outside. Pretty funny. But, they had a booming business and we bought a loaf of their delicious pumpkin bread to take with us. My chowder was good and Kyle especially enjoyed his breakfast potatoes.

Then we headed to Tierra Del Mar, just north of Pacific City (my family's favorite beach). There I got to live a dream I've had since I was about 14 years old: ride horses on the beach with my boyfriend! (Yes, Kyle is my boyfriend, for those wondering! tee hee!) It was a great ride and they even let us run the horses a couple of times. The weather was perfect, and we were on a practically deserted beach. We got to ride for a little over an hour, which ended up being perfect for us not-in-shape-to-ride-horses people. Our inner thighs have been reminding us of the day:). I rode "Wild Thing" and Kyle rode "Abby". The cute part was Abby (the female) was less than interested in Wild Thing (the male), but Wild Thing was very interested in Abby. Abby was a faster walker, so she would get ahead of Wild Thing, then Wild Thing would try and catch up (trotting), and Abby would just walk away again. The owner told us they always do that.

Here I am on Wild Thing. I like it because it looks like I'm running him, but actually we're just trotting.

Kyle, Abby, Amyanne, and Wild Thing.

Riding off into the sunset (mid-day sunset, of course!). How romantic. Work with me here:).

Post ride with Wild Thing.

Then we drove back toward home, stopping in an out-0f-the-way place near McMinnville. After years of driving to the coast and passing signs for a monastery, we finally looked online and discovered it was the home of the Brigittine Monks, who sell truffles and fudge as their livelihood. Naturally, most of their sales come from shipping/online, but they do have a tiny store/visitor's center at the monastery. We decided to see what it was like. We bought a box of truffles and visited with the starved-for-conversation man who met us at the door. Notice the Eddie Bauer sweatshirt I am wearing in the picture below? He asked me who Eddie Bauer was. And when he asked Kyle where he worked and Kyle answered, "Cricket", he asked "What's Cricket?" So, it was fun, and unusual conversation to say the least. We also spent a moment in their chapel, which reminded me a bit of Israel, oddly enough.

The monaster is about 15 minutes outside of McMinnville completely surrounded by farm land. This beautiful wheat field was along the gravel road to the monastery, and the shafts were heavy with ready-to-harvest grain. It was so golden and beautiful and it reminded me of the wheat fields that were right next to my home growing up. So I had Kyle snap this picture of me standing in the field:).

Lastly, we did a quick jaunt into McMinnville to see the Evergreen Aviation water park they are building next to the Aviation Museums/IMAX theater. They are turning it all into quite the place. There is going to be a hotel/resort with the water park and the retired 747 jumbo jet on top of the roof is quite the spectacle. Kyle loves seeing this kind of thing.

Then we headed home to our sweet kids who had a full day of riding bikes at the park, getting ice cream at McDonald's, and going to the library. They said they missed us, but I'm not so sure:).