Weekend ABC's - C is for Coast, Creamery & Cheese

So you can tell by Friday's post that I was a little bit ... um ... stressed?  I didn't think a thing about it until I was over at Wade & Jimmy's on Saturday night and Wade said "when you go on rants like that I'm all, eek!"   Luckily after cocktails, a delicious dinner and DVD of a comedienne named Lisa Schmaldafksdfa (Wade, please help a sistah out with that chick's last name) I was feeling a lot less scary.  The swag a girl gets from an evening at Wade & Jimmy's doesn't hurt either--Pink Martini CD's and left over grilled steak & chicken from dinner.  Who needs the Academy Awards baskets?  Now if I could JUST get them to stock comfortable women's footwear ... and single fireman.  

Anywho, I happened upon another Portland blogger on Friday.  Her "Afternoon and a Full Tank of Gas" posts (check her out here) inspired me and so I took my little sister (through Big Brothers & Sisters) down to Tillamook for the day.  It was just what the doctor ordered.  Next time I have a melt down please ask me if I've done the following:

• Been out of the house yet.
• Taken off my pajamas.
• Cleaned out my purse.
• Gotten a haircut.
• Been to the beach recently.

In case you're wondering, the answers to those questions were yes to all but the beach and a haircut (which is now scheduled for next weekend).  It still seems odd to me that instead of being ten minutes away, the coast here takes PLANNING.  Depending on what beach you want to get to, you can be there in an hour & a half or as long as six hours.  Though my little sister is AWESOME, we've never been in the car together for longer than 20 minutes and usually during that time I feel a bit like Oprah:  "How are you?  How was your week?  How are you feeling about school?  The current political climate?  The ontological necessity of modern man's existential dilemma?"  I wondered if 3 hours in the car (round trip) would be the smartest thing for my already funk mood.  But peeps?  Next time you're feeling stressed?  Grab a ten year old and head for the beach.  

We tasted brie and homemade jams at the Blue Heron, watched cheese being made at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, fed some farm animals and ate ice cream.  Not that I needed to, but I brought home more CHEESE (see my post on cheese here).  We ended the day standing on the cliffs next to the Cape Meares lighthouse and feeling the spray of salt water on our faces.

I was breathing much easier on my way home.  And because this is weekend ABC's, I figured I'd give you what Miss Thang and I came up with during our alphabet game we played in the car.

We're going to Tillamook and bringing:  Apples, buckets, cars, dogs, ears, fun, gophers, hats, ice cream, jelly, kangaroos, love, maple syrup, noses, octopi, pancakes, queens, rabbits, sun, tickles, umbrellas, violins, walruses, x-rays, yaks and zebras.

Hope you had great weekends!

SSG