This free, family-friendly event has become one of Belmar's favorite summer traditions. Anyone can enter.

While some families may have still been lingering at their breakfast table Saturday morning, others were digging up some fun at the annual Balboa Island Family Sandcastle Contest, a two-hour ...

Astoria artist Ronni Harris had never attended the sand castle contest before, let alone driven on the beach. “It was damned exciting to drive down the beach. I’d never done it before,” she said.