A Day of Firsts

The other day I was getting ready to send some pictures to be developed, and realized I'd never posted many of them--GASP!!! So in the next couple days I'll try to get caught up :-)

These were from this past Veteran's Day, when David had the day off, and we decided to go to the beach. Usually we go to Manzanita or Cannon Beach, and avoid the more touristy places like Seaside. But I'd heard from some friends that the Aquarium at Seaside was a good place to take little kids, as they could feed the sea lions, as well as see lots of things, and it was indoors---the weather didn't look very promising so this was a good thing.

On the way, we stopped at a park which used to have the tallest Sitka Spruce tree in the world, because we wanted to see what it looked like after last year's storm--we had heard it'd been split in two by a lightning strike. If it's any indication, they no longer advertise it as the tallest Sitka Spruce, but as a Heritage tree. This was the first of our Firsts that day, because Kyra had never seen trees that tall before, or walked underneath a tree (see below).

We continued on to Seaside, with it raining most of the way. However, when we got there, the sun was shining, which was a very nice surprise.

Then we headed to the aquarium, where Kyra wanted nothing to do with feeding the sea lions, so I got the smelly task--yuck! But she loved looking at all the fish, the octopus was really cool, and she got to touch the sea anemones and other animals in the touch tank, which was a big hit.

Afterwards, we walked on the beach a little bit, and then we decided to go ride the Carousel, as this was also something Kyra had never done (#2 of the Firsts). I've always liked carousels as I remember riding them with my grandma when I was Kyra's age. My great uncle George (my grandma's brother) either worked with, or was the owner of Rainier Shows, a traveling carnival--I'm not sure which. Anyway, at the time, Rainier Shows were set up at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle Washington, and I remember Uncle George letting us ride the carousel. Good times.

At first Kyra was a little reluctant to get on the carousel, but by the end of the ride, I could hardly get her off her horse. David tried to take a couple pictures, and as you can see below, Kyra is hanging on for dear life :-)


After the carousel ride, we were starting to get hungry. We had packed a picnic lunch, so we decided to drive down to Ecola State Park and eat there. This was another First, as I had never been there before. The weather was beautiful, but really windy. While we ate, a herd of elk came and grazed right by the parking lot, which was really cool, and Kyra got to hold her first--yep, #4--woolly bear caterpillar. There were tons of them everywhere, so of course, we had to stop and pick up each one of them.

This one's my favorite...
She's so excited about the caterpillars!

After that, we headed into Cannon Beach, stopped at the yummy bakery for some sweet treats and coffee, and then headed for home. It was a great day, and one we'll remember for a long time!