Oregon Adventures-Numero Uno

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to see my girls in Oregon. The primary reason for my trip was to celebrate this:

Nicole's 30th birthday. Those are the cupcakes from night one of surprise celebrations. We managed to really surprise her with a little overnight at the coast with her girls. We even made her cry...several times...she's not a crier...but we saw lots of "tears of joy" during her weekend of surprises!

I flew in Thursday night. Jessie retrieved me and Tim (returning from business) from the Portland airport and we returned to Jessie and Tim's house for a little slumber party with Nicole. The next day we headed to Cannon Beach, because "Erin (the desert dweller) wanted to go to the coast." Really, we needed an excuse to get her near the surprise at the beach house. This departure required some planning (we had plans A, B and C) so we could get overnight bags and supplies into the car without Nicole knowing. Jessie purposefully stalled with her hair, so Nicole and I would be ready before her. I suggested to Nicole that we go get coffee while Jessie finished getting ready. I also pretended to not like the "fake" Starbucks found in the nearby Safeway so that we could drive farther to the regular Starbucks and give Jessie more time to frantically pack the car, throw Nicole's stuff into a suitcase and be ready to go without arousing suspicion. Plan A worked and we did not need to worry.

In typical Oregon coast fashion, it was miserably wet and cold for our beach adventures. We decided to eat lunch and shop in Cannon Beach, darting in and out of stores and getting wetter and wetter. Here's how much of our day was spent:

We told Nicole we wanted to visit a store in Manzanita that we'd heard about from Jessie's friend. As I read Jessie directions to the "store," Nicole seemed to get confused when we drove through the center of town into the residential section. We turned in the drive and she saw a happy birthday sign and said "look it's someone's birthday....wait, it's my birthday!" She was quite surprised that we we're spending the night at Beth's family's beach house. The surprises continued as Jennifer arrived and the tears started when Brenda arrived a little bit later. We spent the evening eating pizza at a cute little place by the water, drinking Nicole's favorite "umbrella drinks," playing games, hot tubbing, eating cupcakes and laughing a lot. The next morning we enjoyed a big breakfast complete with mimosa's before heading back to Salem for more surprises. The sun was shining (finally) on our way out of town, so we stopped at the beach to enjoy the view and take a couple pictures.

Here's Jessie and Nicole looking cute as ever:

and me and Jessie:

The story continues, but I figure you might not want to read it all in one sitting. Stay tuned for more Oregon adventures and fun pictures later this week. We had a great weekend, but it went by way too fast. I miss my girls already.