Who Cut the Cheese?!

On Monday we went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I was the only one who had ever been there before, so we were all pretty excited about the trip.

I love the cheese factory. The reason I love the cheese factory the most isn’t for the good ice cream, fudge or the free cheese samples, it is mainly for the squeaky cheese (or “squeeeky cheese” according to Tillamook’s advertising).

If you haven’t had squeaky cheese before you are missing out on something truly wonderful. Squeaky cheese is basically the cheese curds before they get pressed all together into a cheese block. When you eat the curds they squeak in your mouth – not like a mouse squeak but like the sound you associate the words “squeaky clean” with. That’s the best way I can explain it.

I also believe that no other squeaky cheese can compare to the kind you get AT the cheese factory. It’s just better there – squeakier, trust me.

*Z and Arianna.*

After we ate our fill of caramel, ice cream and cheese (I bought two bags of squeaky cheese and didn’t bother sharing very much of either of them as I ate them over the next day and a half) we drove to the beach.

*Z does both her "please" and "more" signs in this video.*

*Aslynn fed herself ice cream.  She's such a big girl!*

We ate at Mo’s, a well known Oregon Coast restaurant chain, and it was okay. I can think of other places that AREN’T on the coast with better clam chowder. But it was still a good thing to do. People here look at you like you are crazy if you say you went to the coast and didn’t eat at Mo’s. I won’t look at people like they are crazy; I will look at them like “way to go for stopping at a little shack along the beach and getting some killer clam chowder you can’t even talk about because it was so good.”

I had it all planned out that we would wait for the tide to start going out and then we would go to a state park that had tide pools and go exploring. We got to the state park and the tide was starting to go out and some okay tide pools were there…but it was pouring rain (what else is new, right?!). We tried our best to tough it out, but eventually we got very wet and cold so we went back to the car and drove home.

Aslynn LOVED the beach though; she was smiling and laughing the whole time we were out there.  We will be going back to the coast before we leave for California. Oregon beaches are different from California beaches and I want Z to love Oregon beaches the most.