Valentine's Day

Believe it or not, this is already our 3rd Valentine's together.

We spent our first one together when we still lived in Eugene.

We were broke. Very broke.

Chad ended up borrowing money from his parents so he could take me out to

dinner and a movie afterwards. We had the 2 for $20 dinner at Applebees.

I don't remember the movie, I think it was Push.

Last year I took Chad to the beach.

We stayed at the Silver Sands in Rockaway, a place I've been going with my family to

for my whole life. I love the town, the motel has an indoor salt water pool, and its right on the beach.

We treated ourselves to dinner at a Mexican restaurant and a super yummy chocolate dessert

we had picked up from the Fred Meyer's bakery. We walked down the beach until we were too

cold, thawed out in the pool and hot tub, and fell asleep listening to a storm that had rolled in that

evening. The next morning we played on the beach for awhile then headed south to the

Tillamook Cheese Factory for a tour and lunch.

Gotta love the squeaky cheese!

This year we went back to the same place.

We brought our own food and had a picnic with chicken salad sandwiches, chips, and soda.

The storm was already brewing when we arrived. This time with wind gusts up to 60 mph or so.

We ventured out to the beach and almost blew away.

This is the sand blowing down the beach. The storm made it all over the news.

The sun came out the next morning and we took full advantage of it.

We walked down the beach in Rockaway. Drove up the coast to Cannon Beach to

finally show Chad Haystack Rock. Drove farther up the beach to Gearhart to drive on the beach

and check out wedding spots.

Twin Rocks in Rockaway.

Haystack rock.

Unfortunately it was still too close to high tide so we didn't get to play around in the tide pools.

The driving on the beach was probably the funniest moment.

Chad's been on ATV's and things like that but never has driven a car on the beach.

The speed limits only 25 mph and we saw three police officers maintaining the beach.

But it was still really fun and we didn't get stuck.

We found a great spot to have our wedding, now I need to call the permit office

and get things rolling on that. It was a fabulous weekend with my sweetheart.

And its the last Valentine's Day as a "single" (according to my taxes)