well, today we decided to drive to the beach. it's about an hour and a half drive from our place (it's a gorgeous drive, too). so we drove to cannon beach which seems to be a sleepy little resort town right on the ocean. i packed us some sandwiches and off we went! just to the north of the cannon beach town, is a state park called "enola", i believe. anyway, it cost us $3 to get in and we drove right to the beach area called "indian beach". it was jsut after high tide, so our spot had a distinct fishy smell to it, but otherwise it was perfect. almost no wind, perfect air temp (about 70-degrees), and chilly water---okay, it was COLD.

i called kirsten (which was roaming, so i didn't call anyone else) and told her that "the ocean called and they're runnin out of shrimp".

mike wandered off to look at the tide pools and such (he's got a million pictures of them, so i'll let him write about it). we've been to two beaches so far in oregon, and this one far surpassed the first one at seaside. i love the feeling of sitting on the beach--it's like perching on the edge of a continent. i look out across the ocean to the horizon and know that i'm staring at JAPAN. it's huge. such a calming, restful feeling. i really wish we lived closer to the ocean, but i think for our price range, portland is the best thing for us. it's a relatively short drive and anything within sight of the coast, well, prices go up exponentially.

this weekend we'd set a budget of $40. i'm not sure if i mentioned that earlier. starting friday morning, and ending tomorrow, we were only allowed $40. well i'm happy to say that as of now (about 6pm, sunday) we still have 6 freakin dollars left over! this budgeting thing has forced us to try and do things that don't cost a lot. it also puts the kibosh on my "impulse spending". i don't know about you guys, but i'm pretty freakin impressed with us. not to mention the exercise we've gotten by walking places rather than taking the bus or driving.

oh yes, on the way home we followed a sign that said "largest siska spruce tree in the united states". this tree is 750 years old and TOWERS above any other tree near it. it's huge. i posted a picture of it, and i think we have one more to post of it, as well. so yeah. we saw it.

more later!
--anne