2018 Annual Girls’ Beach Getaway

We recently had our annual girls’ beach getaway. It’s one fabulous weekend where 3 generations of friends enjoy lots of games, food, laughter, and beach time. We’ve been looking forward to this weekend all year, and I’m pleased to say our time together was just perfect!

The girls are now old enough to really play independently, and we grown ups are loving it! On the first full day of our girls’ getaway they set up a little art station on the front porch, and painted shells all morning!

The painters hard at work, and some of Isla’s finished creations.

This darling little hermit thrush somehow got himself trapped between our front door and screen door for a bit. We were heading outside for our beach walk when we discovered him. He was a little bit stunned, so he took some time sitting on our front porch. The girls and I had so much fun watching him. After a few minutes, he started to try and fly off and bumped into the glass, so I quickly picked him up and released him outside into some nearby bushes.

Madelyn, Robin, and Grandma Roofie (as Isla affectionately dubbed her when she was a baby who couldn’t yet pronounce her “th” blends) all love collecting as much as we do! On Saturday morning, we spent several wonderful hours walking to the mouth of the river and back, and collecting all sorts of treasures together on the beach.

Madelyn’s darling new puppy, Tinker, joined us this year and she had an absolute ball on the beach!

The tides have changed the shape of the mouth of the river so much this summer that we had a clear path to the secret beach we so rarely get to visit!

The girls clambered up as many rock walls and boulders as they could. Isla boasted, “I’m an experienced rock climber! I’ve climbed lots of rocks before.”

We were excited to discover some shell fossils on the back wall of the secret beach!

Grandma Roofie was a dedicated sand dollar hunter! She was telling me how the excitement of finding the sand dollars far outweighs actually having them, and that it is a fun personal challenge to see how many she can collect- I felt like she had reached right into my head, because that’s exactly how I feel about searching for sand dollars!

After a long morning on the beach and an afternoon of games, we spent the evening making (and devouring) dumplings! My mom came up with the idea, and she worked so hard to get everything prepped for us while we were out collecting. I was feeling super nostalgic recreating the dumplings we learned to make our first year in Shanghai! What a warm and special experience it is when happiness from our past connects with our present and continues to bring us joy.

As could be expected, making dumplings was such a fun and wonderfully messy experience to share with the girls, and we all loved every minute of it. Plus, the dumplings were really tasty!

On Sunday morning we drove north to Oceanside to look for agates. We stopped for coffee in Pacific City, for how can you have a true girls’ outing without a fancy coffee?! We arrived in Oceanside just before low tide. Robin and I took the little girls through the tunnel to the rockier beach to start finding agates. It didn’t take long before the girls were excitedly uncovering shiny treasures.

Speaking of our time in Shanghai, I love that Isla has maintained her “Shanghai squat” after all these years!

Madelyn found agates all by herself this morning!

After hunting for agates, everyone had worked up an appetite, so we visited the newly renovated Tillamook Cheese Factory for lunch and some ice cream. It was a very sweet way to wrap up our wonderful weekend together!