Rockaway Beach

After we went to Portland, we stayed in Rockaway Beach for a few days at this totally adorable cottage. As people who have never done vacation-house rentals before, I think we were super lucky in the ones we found---they both seemed like the most perfect places we could have chosen! This one was right at the beach. It was so charming, with its yard full of flowers and its lovely, pale blue walls and sweet details like drinking glasses with tiny cut-glass fish on them (SO cute!!).

Abe on the patio

Malachi conducting music on the porch (Abe used to do the same at his age)

Junie with calla liles (I love calla lilies! In fact, Junie was almost named Calla)

Sleeping loft

Front room with window seat!

Now we'll always have an especially fond place in our hearts for this cottage because Goldie took her first steps here!! Here she is walking to Malachi (while he watches proudly).

You access the beach via a beautiful little path that goes through a stand of trees,

then through the salt grass, and you're there! I just loved watching this scene every day, of eager feet running excitedly down the path to the water. And it was so beautiful!

We had such a great assortment of weather. I hadn't thought it would ever be warm enough for swimming suits, but sometimes it was sunny and nice and warm enough for the kids to play in the water. Other times it was sunny but windy, better for digging in the sand, and in the evenings it was chilly enough for jackets while we wandered along the sand and explored. It was so nice.

Daisy's swimming suit has wings on it, so she was usually either pretending to be a butterfly or an angel.

The children built many great and imposing monuments:

this tunnel,

the Great Pyramid and Sphinx,

a Sand Bunny,

and more tunnels.

We found many strange and wonderful creatures, like this bald eagle that swooped down right over Malachi (to his great delight---he loves bald eages!), 

this furry caterpiller

this . . . shrimp?,

and the mysterious creature--a kind of sea slug, perhaps?--that sometimes left this kind of track

and sometimes this kind.

Aha! Here is a rare glimpse of her in the wild, examining her surroundings with interest

and some amusement

before returning to the sea from whence she came.

We found sparkling and glowing treasures

of every color.

And the water! I love watching the waves sweeping back and forth across the sand, and the light shining on top of the crests. The ocean is so different in every type of light, and so alive from minute to minute. I could watch it forever! And then there are so many variations of that same game one always plays on the beach---running away from the waves! Catching them! Jumping over them! Letting them catch you! You'd think it might get boring after awhile, but it never does.

Colossus, standing in a heavenly beam of light

A lady came walking along the beach and asked Junie if these sunglasses were hers. We said they weren't, but since there was no one else around, the lady gave them to her anyway. Junie was very proud of them.

One of the best things about being in a house at the beach was that naptime could continue to be a daily occurrence. This meant Daisy and Junie and Goldie went through the days much more cheerfully! But they were always happy when nap ended and they could get back out onto the beach.

We found kites at our cottage, and one windy evening the weather was perfect for flying them. I've never really been able to keep a kite up for long enough that it feels worth all the trouble, and now I realize I've just lacked the right conditions: consistent, strong, steady wind. I don't think most have the kids have ever flown a kite, so they thought this was very exciting!

Abe got his kite up so high!

Evenings were some of the most beautiful times---the light was so lovely over the water and on everyone's faces!

One night we had a fire on the beach and cooked our dinner, which was completely delicious, as such dinners are, and totally worth every grain of sand that was ingested during it. :)

Oh, little cottage and beach! We miss you! We had so much fun here!