Life's a Beach

Then you have to go home. Actually it is quite nice to be home. I was on the road three times in September and I missed being at home with the family.  I did enjoy our little beach house stitching retreat last weekend.  We had about 25 ladies rent a house in Lincoln City, Oregon for a few days.

This was the third year I've gone with this group, so there was much catching up to do with old friends (and my Mum), but also meeting some new folks.  Much food, wine, and chocolate was consumed. The weather was fantastic, so long walks on the beach were almost mandatory. Some of us actually got a little stitching done. I got to see a lot of Ink Circles projects in the works, including about five versions of Cirque des Coeurs.  We had a special viewing/fondling/sale of Carrie's Threads Limited Edition silks.  I can't use any limited edition things in my regular charts, but that does not stop me from collecting them for personal use. Mwah hah hah.

What I did on my summer vacation

 We went to Oregon! Land of Banana Slugs and good beer.  We tried many good brews from the numerous breweries we visited to the interesting imports we found at a Bosnian restaurant in Astoria.

 We took in the Bite of Portland Festival and tried one of the famous Voodoo Donuts. $0.75 worth of donut and $2 worth of cleverness and hype (our Zombie was a man-shaped jelly donut impaled by a pretzel.)  Again, much good beer and music to partake there.  Oh yeah, and you can't drive through Tillamook without stopping at the cheese factory.

 Did some kayaking with my son after leaving the girl with my Mum in Newport. We also did some geocaching along the coast and in Portland, where we hooked up with my friend Tasha.

 One of the few low points of the trip was to visit a "castle" that the Thomas Guide was kind enough to highlight.  We RedOTFL to see it doubled as a Senior Center.  And it wasn't very castle-like, in fact it was just a house. But it wasn't just any house, it was the "Flippin" House. Next door was a (less historic) friggin' house.

For those times we couldn't make up our minds we ordered one of everything - sampler style.