Scrapbook page of our trip to Waldport, OR

Materials (for my fellow stationery nerds)

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2025 Waldport trip

31 May 2025 | Blog

We try to get to Waldport once a year. Ruth found it several years ago while searching for AirBnBs on the beach, and on the cheap. (shhh!) We’ve been coming back ever since. It’s a quiet town without a lot going on, but that’s the point. We spend lots of time at the house, walking the dunes and the beach, finding agates and shells and sea life. We spend less time on screens and more time together.

Every year is different. I remember one year we got obsessed with a big puzzle that was at the AirBnB. Another year we explored a lot out of town. This year we spent a huge amount of time scanning the beach for agates, and we also saw the Sea Lion Caves in Florence, and we also ended up with this cool cherry-red Jeep Wrangler Rubicon as a rental, even though I spec’d something very boring at checkout lol.

Every year is different, and every year is rejuvenating. I’ve learned that family vacations are really just a way to change the scenery, stop working and spend more thoughtful time together. But they’re not really “vacations”, and as a person who recharges alone, we thought it would be prudent this trip to send me off to visit Portland beforehand, which turned out to be a great tactic for me to be fully present with the family in Waldport. This was a blast, and I can’t wait for more.

About Scrapbooking

I grew up watching mom do some serious scrapbooking in the late 80’s to early 90’s. The entire dining room table would be covered in supplies; special scissors that cut squiggly lines, devices that round the corner of paper, glue guns, markers, ribbon and tape… all of it was to mindfully display photos of recent family memories.

I was a tween when my grandfather Gordon died, and it made me think about his life, and what he had left behind. I regretted not visiting him more, but also relished the few memories I had; sitting on his lap as he showed me his studies on history and its figures, perusing his various fine art paintings and whimsical inventions. I began building a family tree with my uncle in Luleå, Sweden, and after I had my own kids, I began to think about the physical remnants of Gordon’s life. I was grateful to have rescued the double-decker bicycle he had created so that I could restore it. But all the rest were little more than memory. It made me think what would I have wanted, if anything were possible?

The answer came quickly and clearly: I would have wanted his scrapbooks. (As far as I know, Gordon was never into scrapbooking.) Scrapbooks has a unique way of forcing creativity while also serving as solid documentation of memorable events. You can’t scrapbook without leaving something of yourself on the page in the process. And that’s what I wanted; more of Gordon. I wanted to know who really was this man? How did he live? What did he enjoy? What were HIS favorite memories?

And so that’s why I started scrapbooking again in early 2025… so that I could begin to build an archive of things that I want to remember, and I try to pour a lot of myself into them… I talk about my feelings, what I appreciated and what was challenging. I do this because this is what I wish I had from my grandfather. Maybe my kids or grandkids will appreciate it someday. But I’m making sure that—when the time comes—it’s an option for them to get ahold of my scrapbooks and get to know me from another angle once I’m gone.