Day Trip to Cannon Beach

Cannon Beach is a place Kyle's family grew up spending their summers; it's also the name of our favorite sandwich at the QFC deli. A few months ago, Kyle and I blocked off the third weekend in April to do an overnight date-night at his family's cabin in Ellensburg. Due to a scheduling error, the cabin was actually in use and we had to come up with a plan B for our weekend getaway. Kyle decided it would be fun to scrap the overnight and just do a day trip to Cannon Beach, a place I had never been before. I am so glad we went! It was a gorgeous day, and we spent all afternoon exploring Cannon Beach with Kyle as our tour guide.

Relaxing on the drive down the 101...

Ready to explore Cannon Beach!

 We started off by finding the nearest bathroom, just for future reference. We then made our way down Hemlock towards the Conference Center, where Kyle has a lot of found memories.

Kyle hates it when I say "do the thumbs up!", but he did love
showing me around the grounds.

Next, we headed to the beach because I couldn't wait to see Haystack Rock. The beach was beautiful! We walked for about a half a mile to get closer to the rock before taking some pictures. There were so many couples and families around - it gave me that same warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you see loved ones meeting people at the airport after they've been away from home (if you've seen the movie Love Actually, you know the scene that's playing out in my head right now).

Next, we headed back to Hemlock Street to get lunch at Pizza a Fetta, the best pizza place in town (or possibly ever).

Hemlock Street

Pizza by the slice!

The many faces of Kyle!

f

Happy as a clam!

After lunch we did some window showing, where we picked up a print of Haystack Rock as well as a Christmas ornament to add to our collection. We then headed over to Bruce's Candy Kitchen. This place is a very fond memory of Kyle's, and is also the place where we ordered all the taffy from for our wedding favors (350 individually wrapped bags of 4 pieces each, to be exact).

Taffy favors at our wedding

Bruce's Candy Kitchen

Taffy by the pound!

I'm happy I finally got to see this place in person!

After Bruce's, we stopped into a little antique shop. For some reason, this never gets old for me, and I always find "something" that we need to have. At this shop, I found a pretty seashell (that I will spray paint a solid color for our bedroom) and a little sand jar. 

My finds!

Of course, we needed sand from Cannon Beach for the little jar!

Then, we just decided to spend some more time just hangin' on the beach, enjoying God's creation. Can you blame us?

We ended the day with dinner at Morris' Fireside Lodge. We were pretty pooped, and had recently discovered we were a little sunburned. It was a great way to end the day!

Giving it grace: What a wonderful day! This daycation was a much needed breath of fresh air. I am in the processing of preparing my thesis to be presented, and between work, my school, community group, and other commitments, Kyle and I don't get a lot of time to just really "hang out" together. I admit, I was pretty bummed when our original trip to Kyle's cabin got canceled. I really wanted to be mad at someone - anyone - because I had been looking forward to it for so long. In the face of my selfish anger, God blessed us with the best day we've had since we've been married (mini-moon aside) in Cannon Beach! Although we we're just four hours away, all the stress of daily life seemed to have been left behind on another planet. It was so fun to just wander around, not care about the time, not be on our phones, and just take in the moments. I can't wait to go back!