Cannon Beach 2011 - Day One

We go to Cannon Beach, OR every year to celebrate our anniversary. We started going in 2006 as a birthday present for Ray and after going in 2006 and 2007 we decided it was the perfect place for us to get married! We didn't get to celebrate there in 2009 since I was 8 months pregnant - I didn't want to be in the car for 4 hours!

This year we were especially excited to go because Ell is at such a fun age right now! We left on Tuesday morning about 10am and stopped first at Southcenter to pick up Ray's new ring and lunch. By the time we finished with that it was about noon. The drive there was pretty good. Elli slept for about an hour and woke up when we took a stretch break at a rest stop. She has fun doing everything - even just walking Max around for 5 minutes! The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful - although we did have a few fun times signing and dancing like crazy to Elli's music!

Walking in our front door

We stayed at The Ocean Lodge this year which is a sister property of where we normally stay. And all I could say at first was 'OH MY!' This place was absolutely stunning! Our room was so large! It had a separate bedroom, good size bathroom and a living room with a kitchenette. The view from our room was gorgeous! We were only 10 steps from the beach! Since it was almost 5 by the time we had unpacked we took a quick run to the beach so we could put our toes in the sand! Elli took a few minutes to figure out that she loved it but soon she started shoveling away and burying her 'piggies'.

View from our room!

That night we went to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Morris' Fireside Restaurant, which is in the heart of downtown. This is where we had dinner with our family after our wedding. Last year I ordered too much food and was uncomfortably stuffed so I played it safe and only ordered clam chowder this year - seriously the best clam chowder I've ever had! Ray had his favorite, fish and chips, and Elli had a grilled cheese sandwich. A great dinner out and very relaxing night.

Vacationing with a little one is a little tougher because we have to be in the room to get Elli to bed so after Elli was down Ray went downstairs to borrow a DVD so we spent the evening in front of the fire and watching 'Due Date'. Our first day was wonderful and I was glad we didn't overdo it when we first got there - it felt nice to relax a bit!