Last weekend was the Newport Marathon.  Yes, I am still going to my kid's events...36 years later, I am STILL as proud of him as I was when he took his first step, stood on his head, said his first word, and ran his first race.  I don't think there will ever be a time when I say I have gone to enough events that my kids or grandkids are in.  No matter how old they get, I am still wanting to be there to watch the event play out and hug them when they are done.  As it was...John ran his best marathon ever!  He finished his 26 mile run in 3 hours 18 minutes, taking 20 minutes off his time from the last time he ran the same marathon!  It was such a fun time.   We had a house rented that is right on the ocean front and the marathon even runs past the house!  So even though he had to get up early to be at the starting line, we stayed at the house, had coffee and breakfast and waited for him to run past.  Then we jumped in the car a couple of hours later and waited for him to cross the finish line.  I love the photos I got...the top center one shows them passing the house, then middle one shows him about to cross the finish line...and there behind him is Rachel running back to the finish line and Joshua is there at the side running along with him...they had gone up the road a little ways to see him sooner.  The shot at the top left with him looking at his watch is a terrible focus, but I kept it anyway because it shows his smile as he looks at his time and knows he did really well.  It chokes me up to know how proud he was and it makes me so happy to see him reach a goal he worked so hard for. The bottom right shows him with his after race snack...WHO ever decided that beer and clam chowder are the perfect after race foods?

 The rest of the weekend was spent playing.  Emily and Joshua showed Josiah all about digging in the sand.     He is old enough now to really get into it with them. (above photos) Sunday morning, some guy decided to para-sail off the little cliff in front of hour house.  They swam in the pool & soaked in the hot tub.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

 Then we went to the tide pools.  The beach is made up of black smooth rocks, mostly all the same size.  They come from the lava rock behind the pools.  Little by little the tide water rubs the lava wall until chunks fall off, there are rocks in the lava and the tide keeps rolling and polishing them.  The whole beach is made up of them.  The pools were full of anemones and urchins and muscles and starfish.  Joshua found a cormorant shell, it was pretty blue like a robin egg, but really thick. We were there at lowest tide so things were pretty well dried up.  I really like the starfish up top, he is holding on to the wall like he is afraid to get in the water.  

 This rock seems to jump out at me every time we go there, this time, I added some pupils to those puddles of water...it gave him extra personality.

 Of course we had to take a walk to town to the ice cream shop.  

 And I got my fill of night shooting too.  Even though the day started out misty, it ended with a beautiful sunset.

 I tried some new techniques too.  Long exposures...there are two ghosts in the bottom left of the shot above...and the same ghosts appeared when I tried out some light painting with my flashlight at the whale bone sculpture in the photos below.  It was something I have not tried before and the kids and I had a lot of fun experimenting.  It was pitch black out, all this light came from the flashlight and natural sources.

I coerced them into a few group shots before we packed up and headed for home.