Half a Decade and still going strong

July 6th was mine and jarrod's 5 year anniversary. FIVE YEARS! Half a decade! wild, right? i'd say so. it doesn't feel like it's been that long, but if i really think about all we have shared in the past five years, then yeah, i can understand that it's been that long, but it still doesn't feel that way. that's probably a good thing though, right? haha. good thing we're not tired of each other! hahah.
alright, so for our lovely half a decade anniversary we decided to go out of town and head to newport to see the Oregon Coast Aquarium. (http://aquarium.org/) it was a pretty nice aquarium, but not as big as i thought it'd be. no matter, we still had a good time. here's some pics from that:

i tried to get a pic of a sea lion, but they wouldn't stay still long enough. haha.
after the aquarium we headed to Historic Newport Bayfront where we stopped at the Undersea Gardens, Wax Museum, and Ripley's Believe It or Not. all 3 of those came in a special package, which was really cheaper for all 3 than just one or two of them, so yeah. it was fun. pics!:

The Undersea Garden

Lewis and Clark

Johnny Depp, if only

LOTR

we then walked around the bayfront, looking through the shops and galleries. we stopped at a nice chocolate shop where we bought some delicious sea salt caramels. yum. after the chocolate shop we left newport to check in at our campsite at Beachside.
we unpacked our stuff at the site

then went back into town to find some dinner. we ended up having pepperoni pizza, which was pretty good. after dinner we headed back to our campsite and then we went to the beach so we could freeze our bootys off. it was COLD!!! and incredibly windy. somehow we still managed to stay on the beach to get some good pics:

see the wind blowing us away? haah

once we headed back to the tent we decided to start a fire to warm ourselves up and to get our smores started so we could get nice and warm under our blankets sooner. haha. jarrod built the fire (of course, that's what he's here for...hahahahah.)

we had some smores and then got in our tent and talked; reminisced about our previous anniversaries. we couldn't think of what we did our third year anniversary though...i still don't remember. weird. haha. but oh well. after talking for a while, we fell asleep.
Wednesday July 7th we woke up, packed up, and headed back to the beachside beach for a bit. it was low tide which blew jarrod's mind. haha. he took some pics while i kept my toes buried in the sand to keep them warm. once we left the camping grounds we went back into newport to the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse (http://www.yaquinalights.org/). we took a tour around the lighthouse and then headed down to another freezing cold, windy beach bc that's what jarrod wanted. :P my hat blew off on the beach-aggravating! lol.

then we decided to head to the Yaquina Head Lighthouse that was a few miles north of the Yaquina Bay lighthouse. i don't know how it happened, but it got COLDER while we were at yaquina head. maybe bc we were at a higher elevation plus the maddening winds and lack of sunlight. MAN was it cold. we were only at that lighthouse for maybe 10 minutes before i got so cold that we had to leave. we went to visitors center for some educational fun. we were there longer than the actual lighthouse, but it was inside, without wind. haha.

jarrod was trying to make me as tall as the lighthouse, but it's still a tad taller. :P

once we left yaquina head, we headed towards Tillamook so we can visit the famous Tillamook Cheese Factory (http://www.tillamook.com/cheesefactory/index.html). once there we went straight to the cheese sampling line (yes, jarrod DID sample cheese!!! OMG, i know, right? madness) and then we walked around the rest of the factory until we got in line for some yummy tillamook ice cream. we both got double scoop waffle bowls (a bit too much for me. sad days.). jarrod got root beer and something else...he didn't really like the root beer but he seemed to enjoy whatever else he had. i got grandma's cake batter (YUM) and german chocolate cake (YUM). omg, it was GOOD. haha. the ice cream was the end of our visit to the tillamook cheese factory.

we headed home after this and once home, we were lazy as can be. good times. :)
so that was our anniversary! :D it was lovely.
it was back to the real world after our few days off, but we did do something exciting friday!
we went downtown for an ice cream Churn-a-ment and free ice cream samples. YES. great beginning to a great day. after our samples we went to a food cart pod and got some cuban food which was so tasty!! yum. it was good. we got our food and then headed back to Pioneer Courthouse Square where we ate our lunch and people watched for a while. once done eating we walked to the Tom McCall's Waterfront park and then we walked over the hawthorne bridge and then back over to the park. we then got on the train to head back home. the rest of the weekend we were lazy once again. we don't really have much planned for this week, yet. i'll get on it though. in the near future (by this weekend) i plan on making some pie from scratch after we buy some fruit from a local famers market. i'm excited! other things for this upcoming week include....unknown. haha.
alright, now it's time for me to get back into my dexter addiction.
-sarah-