Long Beach Trip and Christmas

Well Christmas and Winter Break from school was weird this year...It was Rylan's father's turn to have him for Christmas and asked if he could have him through the weekend because his mom took time off and they were going to stay at her place in Ellensburg. We celebrated a little with Rylan and my parents on the 22nd.  Lee's Mom got Lee the 19th until the 25th so the boys didn't get to be with each other much. I had Rylan home with me alone until the 24th when his father came and picked him up in the morning. So we had no kids the night of Christmas Eve. Michael won some movie tickets from work so we went to a movie theater and saw Mockingjay (it was really good) which was fun - but I don't think we will ever get used to not having our whole family all together during the holidays.

Christmas Day we got to spend time with Grandpa Shad and Grandma Sandy and they brought Lee back home. That was probably the Christmassy-ist time of all the celebrations we had. We don't see them enough so that was really fun! Right after they left I was mad at myself for forgetting to take a picture :-( I almost invited over Nana & Grandpop (my parents) as well but our house is so small I didn't know how we would all fit. It will be really nice if we end up moving into a bigger place in the next year or so. I am really looking forward to being able to have family and friends over more.

Here are pictures of Rylan on Christmas over in Ellensburg. He wore his Santa hat over there and apparently didn't take it off once even to sleep!

The day after we headed over to my Aunt Nicki and Uncle Larry's house in Long Beach, WA
It was super sad that Rylan wasn't with us but it was good for Nana & Grandpop to spend some one on one time with Lee.  The beach was so pretty even in the cold. Lee loved it! And we stayed at a great hotel (Adrift is the name). We had two rooms both with double beds and Lee chose to sleep in the room with Nana & Grandpop which was really cute. They took him in the mornings down to the lobby to get us some of the free coffee and himself some hot cocoa. It was adorable.
We got lot's of pictures at the beach! Lee was in such a great mood the whole time we were there. He is really good at taking long road trips. On our second trip to the beach we found a big piece of styrofoam and turned it into a boat. We spent hours launching it from different areas to see if it could make it over the big waves. Lee got his feet and pants soaked but didn't complain or want to stop, (which is amazing because sometimes he will refuse to keep walking to school if he feels like some of his sock is poking him in his foot).

 For some reason there was a ton of foam on this part of the beach. It was windy so Lee had fun kicking it and watch it go up in the air and also trying to get it on Grandpop! :)

 The clouds were really beautiful and Lee pointed out how the ocean looked like crystals the way the sun was shining on it.

 My parents Nana (Nancy) and Grandpop (Greg)

 This is the styrofoam boat. Lee named it porcupine or pokey for short ;) 

 Adorableness

 Cheering on Pokey the boat! 

 Me and Lee talking about what colors we would use to ttry painting the beach at home with his new art desk. 

  More cheering on Pokey! 

 Building a 2 foot skeleton! (one of his Christmas presents)

 Tickles :) 

Hiking to the place with biggest waves! 

 Outside of Marsh's Museum a quirky place that has a "Human Shrunken Head" and "Alligator Man" and all kinds of other kooky old things.

For breakfast we went to Shelburne Inn an old adorable place. Both of their chefs were out sick so the owner cooked our meal and it was delicious! We took a tour after breakfast. I loved it.

www.theshelburneinn.com/

This is the hotel we stayed at. Their restaurant has a great view!  My parents got us the room for us to go on a honeymoon but it was nice to have it for this trip instead. 

I highly recommend this hotel! Their are always deals on livingsocial that make it very affordable! https://www.livingsocial.com/escapes/properties/71013-coastal-washington-beach-hotel-dining-credit

www.adrifthotel.com/