The Brewer Family: Happy New Year

How many times do you have to do something to call in tradition? Who knows… But we are certainly trying to create one with our annual beach trip over the New Year. For us it is so nice to escape from the craziness of work and the holidays, and focus on our little family. It is so relaxing and for us is the perfect beginning to a new year. Best part of it all is the fact that we set aside time to go over last year’s goals, and come up with new ones. It is so awesome to look back at what we have accomplished, laugh as we think of the memories, and even more invigorating to see what new and higher expectations we can set for ourselves. The beach in the NW can never promise great weather and we never plan on anything more than watching the storms roll in, but for two years in a row now we have had the most perfect and beautiful weather. We have some pretty ambitious ideas for this next year, so hold on tight for a wild ride!

Here’s where we stayed. We will most definitely be staying here again!

After settling in, we set out for a walk just in time to watch the sun set.

Just as we arrived at the main strip in downtown Seaside, it was like the winds had turned and a huge storm was headed our way! It was comical to watch the kids faces in the wind. But we quickly turned around and tried to outrun the rain clouds. For the most part we were successful… but then just as fast as it had come, it was gone.

The next day was pretty mild and cloudy. But hey, there wasn’t any rain! We went and spent some time on the sand and then headed to town for some outlet shopping.

Back at the hotel Allie was having too much fun with her very own ‘mini-me’ life sized refrigerator.

That night we had a relaxing and quiet New Year’s Eve where we put together our new goals, successfully stayed up to 12:01am, watched some good ‘ole Dick Clark, celebrated with some sparkling cider and watched some fireworks! Sunday morning we packed up while the girls had fun running in circles around the balcony. Our view was awesome!

Of course the day of departure was even more beautiful than our last two days, so we couldn’t head home without some more beach play, kite watching, and window shopping.

Here’s our hotel from the beach. We stayed in the upper left rooms.

After window shopping downtown, (and yes, mostly just window shopping since our stroller was too big to fit), we stopped for a carousel ride! It was Allie’s first. She was nervous at first, tried to get off, then after some silly nervous laughs, had a great time!

The quality of these are weird due to some setting, but we love Malia’s crazy happy face!

Allie looks like she’s holding on for dear life!

We had lunch, after not wanting to EVER eat out with the kids again… the night before was terrible! Granted we had to wait 45min to be seated, another 15min for our waitress, and then the time we waited for food seemed like forever... the kids were seriously done before we even got a chance to eat! Bummer. But… we risked it again and Allie was just so cute and funny. I feel like I never get smiley pictures of this girl. She always looks so grumpy!