When my mom and Bracken spoke on the phone prior to her visit, he kept coming up with more requests for things he wanted to do while she was here and she kept saying “yes! yes! yes!” to everything. It made for a very busy visit and lots of running around, but we had a wonderful time and Bracken was completely delighted to have so many wishes come true. We actually had more than one adventure day, but the first adventure day is the one I took pictures of.

On Monday we headed up the coast and it couldn’t have been a more beautiful day for it. Several people had told me about a farm store in Yachats, so we decided to stop by. My mom loves Yachats and enjoys going there any time we get the chance. The Yachats Farmstore had a great atmosphere and was a fun place to stop. I was delighted to see all the ferments and felt right at home there. We came away with some pickled beets (they were delicious), blueberry & blackberry kombucha (also delicious), and a colorful little pot for one of Bracken’s plants.

Next, we had lunch at Zach’s Bistro in Newport. We had a view of the ocean and came at a time when we had the whole place to ourselves. The portions were small, but the food was truly delicious. After that we headed to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which was one of the things Bracken requested for us to do when Grandma visited. He had been there one other time, when he had just turned three, and we had somehow missed seeing the sharks while we were there. He never forgot that fact and wanted to go again and be sure not to miss the sharks this time.

He enjoyed himself at the aquarium, making people smile with his enthusiastic pointing and exclamations, just like during his first visit there. My one disappointment was the fact that they no longer had a photo booth there. We had so much fun doing that before and had wanted to do that again. (I love photo booths. Always have.)

The next day my mom got to meet Bracken’s speech therapist, visit our favorite ice cream spot, and come with us to our homeschool group activity. That night we did something very special that Bracken had been wanting to do for awhile now- we went to see the lighthouse at night. Last winter we visited the Heceta Head Lighthouse and even got to take a tour inside. Bracken enjoyed that immensely and wanted to know what it looked like all lit up at night. I started getting library books about lighthouses and after we read one about a little girl who went to visit a lighthouse at night with her dad just like he had done with his father when he was a little boy, his mind was made up. Grandma said “yes” to that adventure as well while she was here and our family all headed to the coast for a nighttime adventure. It was really cool to see!

But what did we do after the aquarium on our first adventure day? More on that soon….

P.S. After our nighttime lighthouse adventure, Bracken fell asleep in the car and when my mom carried him inside, he fell asleep on her on the couch. The pictures were super blurry, as you can see, but too sweet not to post. He stayed asleep when I brought him up to bed, but Grandma enjoyed some snuggles with her growing grandson first.