Susan's Homeschool Blog

We just got back from our first beach vacation as a family, a Cannon Beach vacation! I loved the wide sandy seashores with the waves crashing against the sand. The iconic triangular Haystack Rock looks beautiful in the mornings covered with mist.

This was our temporary cottage, two blocks from the beach. It was a miracle how we were able to book this on such short notice. It was as if God reserved this place just for us. It reminds me of the times I went to Panajachel as a kid (as a missionary kid in Guatemala). We would play games and look at the water and be disconnected from electronics.

I woke up each morning and had coffee on the front porch while spending time in prayer. The porch faced a couple of cottages with flowers. There was a huge tree in the yard across the street, and I would see blue jays, goldfinches, and hummingbirds as I sat in prayer before the Lord.

My kids always woke up earlier than I did. My husband sometimes couldn’t sleep, so he would sleep in the latest. One night he got up and walked along the beach. He stumbled upon gorgeous tide pools with gigantic star fish at 3 in the morning. I’ll talk about the tide pools in a separate blog post, since we took lots of pictures.

My kids would play games, make a puzzle, or build card houses while they waited for Alan and I to wake up. Then we would go to the beach, where we dug a huge hole, built forts, and flew a kite. I enjoyed sitting and reading a book about spiritual warfare. There was a juxtaposition between what I was reading and the peaceful ocean scene, but it gave me new insight to understand many events from the past few months. Spiritual warfare is all about fighting deception. It’s interesting how it all boils down to that.

The kids buried themselves in the sand. I’m not sure why anybody would want to do that, but here they are. When we walked down the beach to look at tide pools one afternoon, we saw lots of sand castles, which I will post in another blog post. Apparently Cannon Beach has an annual sand castle contest in June, and the sand castles are even more detailed.

One afternoon we hiked through a rainforest and saw some beautiful scenery. I’ll do a separate blog post on that, since we got so many great pictures of the rainforest and the beach from above. (The three ocean pictures above were taken from the vantage point of the rainforest, where you have to climb part of a mountain.)

We found lots of jellyfish. This was the largest one we saw, about the size of two hands. We also collected sea shells and small rocks, and I might make a collage out of them and post it on my blog later.

The kids were wanting to play games, so here we are playing Settlers of Catan. The game went on much longer than it should have because of all the sheep jokes.

The sunsets on the beach were beautiful. On a couple of the nights, Alan built a fire on the beach. You are allowed to do that, as long as you follow the rules. We dug a small hole in the sand and built our fire.

We ate some s’mores with marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers. We looked out over the ocean that reminded me of the majesty of God.

I sang some hymns to the Lord while the kids giggled and chewed on their s’mores. This was truly a vacation to remember!