Cleveland Reunion: Day 4 and Departure

Saturday was the last day of the reunion and after the super action packed fourth of July, it was a little calmer.  The first activity of the day was to watch the world cup game.  Riley's favorite player is Messi, so he was vaguely excited that Argentina won.

After that a few of us headed out to go biking on the beach.  Another group went to the tide pools and a third went golfing.

The bikes were rather limited, they only had 2 cruisers and a bunch of fun cycles, which were basically tricycles.  My mom and Aunt Margo got the cruisers, while Kyle, Riley, and I got the fun cycles.

Here is Margo and my mom looking at the bikes.

We had to walk the bikes  down to the beach, but once we got there we took off.  The fun cycles were fun to swerve around on the sand and they turned really easily.  They were also much slower than the cruisers.  Unfortunately, Kyle's was too small so he had to head back to get a replacement.  Riley, my mom and I headed down the beach while we waited.

Here is Riley posing on his bike.

And here is my mom on hers.

And here is Riley and I together.  Through much practice we managed to figure out how to high five each other while biking towards each other and we did a lot of circles in the sand.

 Eventually, Margo and Kyle caught up with us.  After biking around for a bunch and making a lot more circles in the sand, we took a selfie. Though... Riley was so bored waiting that he ended up yawning.

We had to return the bikes, so we headed back.  Outside the shop they had marsh mellow guns which looked pretty cool.  Margo got it for Riley, which brought our total bill to just over $50, and garnered Kyle a free shirt!

We headed back to the house and met up with everyone and ate lunch.  After relaxing a bit and watching most of the second world cup game, we headed to the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

Here is Riley and Kyle as a farmer and cow.

Here are the girls checking out the factory.  Since it was a Saturday, there wasn't a lot of work happening.

The biggest draw was the ice cream (it was a big draw for everyone, so it resulted in a lot of lines)
 

Here is Riley eating some ice cream while my mom is surprised at something.

Next we went and stood in line for the cheese samples. Lots of lines, but people seemed to enjoy the cheese.

There was another photo opportunity in the form of a VW bug.

We went outside while we waited for everyone to finish their ice cream.  Here is another selfie with Riley. 

We headed back, where the girls played water balloon volleyball and my uncle Harvey played harmonica in the swing.  After dinner we all sat around the bonfire and talked about how great the reunion was.  Kyle also told us some stories and we cooked more smores and some apples in the coals.

 Since Sunday was departure day, I will just add it here.

We had to be out by noon.  We all gathered for breakfast.  Here is Riley with a milk mustache looking kind of sad.

Margo, Scott, Kyle, and Claire were the first to leave, so we all bundled out to wave good bye and give them hugs.

We headed back to my parents place and stopped for lunch at this little cafe that had fresh fish from Alaska.  They also had lots of fake tattoos.  Marissa, Aynika, and Haylee used them to create additional  eyebrows for themselves.  It was pretty adorable.

Once we got to my parents place, we set up the tents on the deck for the kids and I showed Riley a bunch of my toys.  Here is is checking out my ninja turtles.  He was a lot more excited about the Star Wars toys though.

All in all it was a terrific reunion.  It was a bit tiring, but that was because there were so many activities. It was great seeing all my family again as well.

Cleveland Reunion: Day 3

The third day of the family reunion was also July 4th, which meant that there were a lot of festivities in the town of Manzanita to attend.  After watching the first half of the Germany-France game we (those of us who were awake) headed to the Fireman's pancake breakfast.  It was a pretty hopping place, lots of people there and the business was brisk.  Eat your food and move out so more people can take your seat.

Here is my uncle Harvey as we are standing in line.  It isn't a very flattering picture... but it does show off the fire truck.

Every person got two pancakes and a decent slice of grilled ham, so it was pretty filling, I definitely could have eaten more, but I managed to survive.  We sat next to a family that had been in Manzanita for the fourth for many years so we asked him for advice about what to do for fireworks.  He strongly recommended going to the beach.  We weren't sure exactly what we wanted to do, we thought we might be able to view them from the house, which would mean much less walking.

After breakfast we headed down to the beach and walked around for a bit.  On the way to the beach, it was pretty evident that the entire town was super prepared for the parade.  Every available spot on the sidewalk was taken with a chair, and in some cases people were sitting there 2 hours before the parade was even supposed to start!

We walked home and had lunch and made it to the parade 7 minutes before it started.  We got a spot right next to where the parade started, and it seemed like a great spot to me.  The kids sat in the front, which offered a good view, and as we would discover, easy access to candy being thrown by the parade participants.

There were a lot of "floats", and the parade probably lasted an hour.  Here are a few of them

This was a beaver bus, it also shows all the kids running around for candy.  Riley is in the white shirt in the middle.

There were also some Chinese dragons.

 And some inventive jellyfish.

 There was a guy dressed up as a fox who handed out candy individually instead of throwing it.

 He then proceeded to dance to "What does the Fox Say?"

 There was also, very randomly, someone dressed up as a scout trooper from Star Wars.

Here is the haul of candy that was collected at the parade.

After the parade, a bunch of us went to Nehalem Bay Winery for a wine tasting and Live music and BBQ event.  It was a really chill place, the band was pretty good and the BBQ was excellent.  I thought the wine was decent, though I've never had a great ability to distinguish wine tastes.

After getting back and relaxing and eating dinner, most of the family played volleyball which was really fun, below are a few pictures, before everyone, including myself had joined.

Finally we headed down to the beach for fireworks, the entire atmosphere was really awesome.  The beach was packed with people and there were several who were launching their own mortar fireworks, which was almost like an additional show.  The main show lasted a really long time, but was really good.  There were several times I thought for sure it was over, but it just kept going and going.

The picture below doesn't do an adequate job capturing the beach and the atmosphere, but I suppose it will have to do.

All in all it was a terrific day, it was also very exhausting, but it was really fun.