Grand Finale

These are some pics from the coast that I took. The view was breathtaking.

Throwing sand

Makayla now has expereinced the joy that can only come from picking up a handful of sand and chunking it at anything that happens to be in the way which was often herself because the wind was blowing.

Coffeshop Actions

I use coffeshop actions to edit my pictures on photoshop pretty often. This is one of my favorite pictures that I took on the beach. I think that it looks great in color of black and white, but I used a few different actions for you to see since I know that many of you use photoshop.

original

classic black and white bitersweet vintage

chocolate
denim

Black and white on the beach

I got the opportunity to take lots of pics on the beach that I thought would look great in black and white. These are by far some of my favorites that I took all week. little feet

Nathan's sister Candice

Kaylie

Kenzie chasing her Uncle Ethan

They were supposed to jump on "3", but Kenzie's "3" was never the same as mine. I still thought that this was an adorable picture.
Candice and her boyfriend-I love this picture.

Nathan, Makayla, and Me

McKenzie is always so vivacious.

Family pics

We went to the coast at Newport, Or while we were visiting family. The kids and grown-ups had a blast. Nathan and his siblings played in the pacific while Melissa's girls went back and forth from the water to the sand. Of course I spent our time at the beach behind the camera while Grandma Lorri managed the grandbabies. The coast was beautiful, but I won't be revealing those marvelous pics until later this week.

I really wanted to take pics on the beach, so we managed to squeeze the tripod into our 1 suitcase that we checked for $20. (CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT WE REALLY DID HAVE TO PAY THAT JUST TO CHECK OUR LUGGAGE?) Anyway, I have never been to the pacific ocean before, so I didn't realize that there wouldn't be much pretty white sand on the Oregon coast. As you can tell we had mud. That is apparently what they have on the coast there, but we used the mud anyway.

These are the pics that I took of the family at the beach.

Melissa with her girls-Mistie (11), Kaylie (7), McKenzie (6)
The whole group-Me, Nathan, Makayla, Ethan, Melissa, Lorri, Candice, McKenzie, Mistie, Kaylie

Me, Nathan, Makayla

Nathan, Me, Kaylie, Mistis, McKenzie who is making glasses with her hands

Nathan with his siblings

nieces

I am glad to take these precious girls as my nieces! They are adorable and full of life. I had so much fun getting to know them better while we were visiting. They are such a joy to be around. McKenzie is the youngest, and she is so energetic. I think that she was lapping the adults all over the place on the beach.
Kaylie is the middle child, and she is a very affectionate, peaceful person.

Mistie is the oldest child. She is very responsible and energetic. Poor Mistie got seasick on the whale watching tour.

Sea Lions

Nathan, Ethan, the girls and I went on a whale watching tour. I bet we had 12-15 whale sightings while we were on the water which is apparently a lot of sightings for a 1.5 hour tour, so we picked a great time and place to go on the tour. It was tons of fun, but I am glad that we didn't eat anything before we got on the boat. Poor Mistie would have been in bad shape if we had eaten first. Sea Lions were also around in the water where we were. Here is a picture of them, but I didn't get any outstanding pictures of the whales because the water was choppy. I didn't want to take a chance of my lovely camera having a chance to swim with the whales in the pacific.