Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center

I want to share with you our trip to Cannon Beach Christian Conference Center. Cannon Beach is located on the coast of Oregon state and is a quaint little town right on the beach. The conference center has a rich history, being established in 1945. I hope you’ll head over to their site and check out all the conference center has to offer and even consider it for your own family. I met all of the leadership, and I am thoroughly impressed with not only the experience, but the heart, spirit and faith behind this conference center.

My husband is a drummer. Our music pastor is asked, annually, to lead music for one of the summer family camps. This summer, we were asked to join the team. You can see my husband’s head peaking up behind the drum set in the picture above. Part of the sessions were made up of worship time. We also were able to hear a great speaker named Dennis Keating, Senior Pastor at Emmanuel Faith Community Church in Escondido, CA. One of the big takeaways from this week is SPIGO. What is SPIGO? It means “something bigger is going on.” The main thought is that when life seems rough, and we don’t understand all the troubles and hurt in this world, we need to have faith that something bigger is going on. God is bigger. He is at work. We can trust his character. So, despite the evil we may think is prevailing or the hurt that doesn’t seem to subside, God is working things out. It’s a bigger and better plan than we can even imagine. Having faith in His plan can bring us hope and peace.

The conference center has some buildings that are right on the ocean with amazing ocean vies. We were closer to the dining hall for our room, but it was great because we had bunk beds in a separate room for the kids. The room was situated next to the other people on our music team, and the building had a big common room close to the rooms. So, once the kids were asleep it was game night for the adults. I’m a gamer, so this was always a highlight for me. The highlight for the boys was their evening coffee milkshake to accompany the game night. It was just a short walk to the beach, so we were at the beach almost daily. The conference was nicely scheduled. There was breakfast, session with worship and speaker while kids were at kids’ camp, and then  a big break in the middle of the day for free time. We would convene again for dinner, evening session/kids’ camp and then every other night or day had a special event. During free time, we could shop in the town, head to the beach, go to the recreation room (pool, ping pong, shuffle board, work out facilities, games, etc.), play laser tag, play on the indoor mini golf course, head to the park or go to a local restaurant. The camp is laid out perfectly for families with kids of all ages. My kids loved their camp counselors, and parents loved the chance to let their kids have a fun time away and then come back to join together for fun family time. The conference center has become a tradition for families. You see families who have been coming forever. There are people our age who used to come when they were kids and are now bring their own families. It is a place seeped in tradition and yet keeps up with newer activities to keep the kids engaged. They have programs for kids from birth to teenage years. Some families choose to go the same time each year, and so their kids look forward to re-convening each summer with their Cannon Beach Conference Center friends. The staff is excited to be there and is great at meeting the needs of the guests.

Below are some of the fun events from our trip. They also have a traditional salmon bake, talent night and ice cream social I didn’t get any picture of on this trip.

We went with one of my closest friends, Kelsey. Her husband is the music pastor at our church. My face is so red because I had just been running on the beach.

The sand castle contest is something the kids looked forward to. We took second place with the dragon, as per the boys’ request. Abby went her own route in creating a sand castle village.

The carnival was a huge hit. They had inflatable bouncy houses, obstacle courses, climbing wall, jousting cage, dunk tank, face painting and a bunch of traditional carnival games. You could win prizes and get cotton candy. The kids had a blast.

We went to the Cannon Beach Haystack rock to look in the tide pools during on of our free times.

If you have been following my blog, you know about our vacation reward system that led us to our trips to Bruce’s Candy Kitchen.

If you are looking for a summer family experience, I highly recommend looking into Cannon Beach Conference Center.