On Friday, we had our Winter Wonderland event at work. We had photos with Santa, two live reindeer, face painting, a ton of holiday crafts, hot chocolate and sugar cookies at Mrs. Claus' kitchen, snow, violinists playing holiday music, train rides, a gingerbread competition, and a festive sweater contest. Cliff even volunteered and decorated the top of the bouldering wall to look like a penguin village (think snow, lights, inflatable penguins). It was adorable and the event was a success.
Yesterday, we went with my awesome co-worker, her husband, and two kiddos to Shore Acres State Park for holiday lights. Shore Acres is south on the coast (that's right we got to see a part of the state we hadn't before!) and for the holidays they put up over 300,000 lights. It was a long day in the car but it was totally worth it as we got to see a few pretty cool things:
1) Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area: On the way down to Coos Bay there is an elk viewing area. The area is a year around home to about 100 Roosevelt Elk. We decided we needed to stop by to see if we could actually see any. Holy cow they were there! There is a little pit stop area where folks can have a picnic, go to the bathroom, and watch the animals. They were super close to the road. I felt like we were back in Yellowstone. I'm a big fan of elk.
2) Fun Food: We ate at the Blue Heron Bistro in Coos Bay. It is a German/seafood restaurant. What could be more fun? At our table we had fried oysters, cod fish and chips, steamed muscles, bratwurst, sauerkraut, stewed red cabbage, German potato salad, and cucumber and cabbage coleslaw. It was tasty. The whole restaurant was covered in old Norma Rockwell images.
After dinner we went to Cranberry Sweets and More as we heard they had tons of free samples. They literally have a sample for every item they sell. Every. Item. They. Sell. No joke. They even had free coffee and cider. It was all decked our for Christmas. We sampled cranberry and raspberry chocolates, cookies, candy canes, fudge (Cliff was really brave and tried their neon cheddar cheese fudge) , jelly candies, spicy chocolate and a ton of other things. It was nuts (but I didn't eat any...haha). I asked to buy a chocolate covered cherry and they gave me two for free. Awesome. I highly recommend the stop for anyone who is going to Coos Bay.
3) Shore Acres Holiday Lights: So apparently Shore Aces State Park has some of the most amazing scenic cliff and coastline views in Oregon. With this said, we got to the park once it was dark. But that is ok as we could hear the ocean so we knew it was close. We will need to go back in the summer when it is light, green, and the flowers are in bloom.
Every year for the last 26 years, Shore Acres State Park has decorated with lights. Each year, more and more lights have been added and now there are over 300,000 lights in the park. We all got bundled and walked around the gardens. We enjoyed more cider and cookies and listened to girl scouts singing Christmas carols in the gazebo. It was pretty great.
They had little light displays of marine life (whales, seals, crabs, frogs, herons, etc.). A few of the light displays had actions. The frogs jumped and croaked. There were underwater glowing Koi. They had lights in bushes to create glowing hydrangeas (I love hydrangeas!). They sold these special 3D looking glasses at their gift shop. When you looked through them at the lights every bulb turned into a gingerbread man, stocking, and candy cane. I tried to take a photo of the effect. See below for the first of my terrible photos. The one to follow is actually of Cliff and I. My photos rule.
It is crazy to think that we are just a week out from Christmas. All of our gifts are in the mail, the tree is up, and we are all set to watch Christmas Vacation or Love Actually tonight. It is finally starting to feel like Christmas.
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