the weather constantly changes on the coast

Thursday - after breakfast we went and walked around the wharf area of Newport. It was sunny and cool. Now some of these pictures I'm going to post here you may have already seen if you're on facebook. That's because some of them are just too good to only post publicly once!!! While in the wharf we saw some freshly caught fish (we think hallibut) being filleted (that word looks weird,but I spell checked it and it's right), crabs being thrown to their death by boiling, and a couple sea lions hanging around the docks. We also stumbled upon the best coffee shop EVER!

Did you know that you can buy hallibut cheeks at the fish market? I found that rather interesting myself. I love hallibut. As my niece Hannah would say, "It tastes like chicken!" Not really, but it sure is good.

You can't really tell, but the clouds are rolling in. Not a good sign for people headed to the beach.

Now you should know this about my dad. . . he is a coffee only kind of guy. Occasionally he'll add cream and/or sugar, but that's it. He'll also drink it hot or cold, but he won't drink capuccinos, mochas or add any other fancy kind of flavoring or, heaven forbid, whipped cream, to it! Dad also wanted to dine at restaurants they don't have in Ohio and Starbucks was totally forbidden on this trip. So when we saw the sign for the KILLER COFFEE in an art gallery, we knew we had to try it out. I personally had the best white mocha I've ever had, and, yes, I topped it with whipped cream. (Note to dad: usually I get my mochas and capuccinos made with non-fat milk and no whip, but I was on vacation!!!)

One of my favorite pictures from the week shows a side of Dad and Phil many of you may not even know existed. Can't you just see them having some father/son-in-law bonding riding down the road on a bike?

After our tour of the wharf, we headed back to the cottage, grabbed our beach chairs, sweatshirts, portable grill, and hot dogs and hit the beach. It was very (no wait, let me emphasize VERY) windy and as you can tell, cloudy, that afternoon which means one thing, it's gonna be COLD! While Phil was trying to get the grill lit, Mom and Dad took a little stroll down to the water. Notice we've only been here for a few minutes and Mom's already showing signs of hypothermia!

Now Mom has done the "test the water out and see how cold it is" thing last summer, so she knows not to do it again. Only Dad got barefoot on this trip.

Phil finally got himself a kite. It's a stunt kite and this was probably not the best day to try it out for the first time seeings how it was so windy. I was the official untwister of the string and launcher into the wind, which are scary jobs. It did finally make a brief stint in the sky.

We didn't last for very long. It was just too cold and mom's appendages started going numb and losing feeling. So we went back to the cottage and relaxed until the sun finally came out and we could get back out there.

We eventually took about a 2 hour walk down the beach and I decided to leave a little proof of their vacation in the sand. Do you see the sun shining in the top right corner?