Whidbey Weekend: Pedis, Fishing, and Crabs

Last weekend, we packed up and headed northwest to spend the night with Eric's parents. A trip to Whidbey is always a fun adventure, this trip was no exception. The exception to this trip was how much we crammed into the time we were on the island.

Eric's mom had the brilliant idea of us girl-types getting pedicures while we were together. Originally, she suggested she and I get them done while Eric, his dad, and the kids were on the boat, not realizing I'd offered to help Eric with the kids on the boat. Quick as a whip, she then suggested that we take Annika for a pedicure, too. This was Annika's first pedicure (aside from us putting nailpolish on her at home) and she loved every second of the experience. The salon had two pedicure chairs designed just for kids, and they had DVD players next to the kid chairs. Brilliant! Annika liked her pedicure so much that she asked the gal painting her toenails to paint her fingernails, too. We walked out of the salon incredibly pampered feeling ... and ready to show the world our gorgeous toes.

Many people tend to choose low-impact activities after getting their nails done. Not us! We headed to the water and went crabbing and fishing! Eric's dad (aka Jack/Bestefar) took Annika fishing for the first time last summer and Conor was feeling left out of the "I've gone fishing" group. So this summer, both kids got to go fishing on Bestefar's boat. We geared up, slopped up with sunblock, tried on our life jackets, and headed out to the boat launch.

Fishergirl Annika.. ready for action!

While Eric and Jack launched the boat, the kids and I did a little beach combing and practiced skipping rocks in the water.  The kids found plenty of interesting shells and even more rocks that were happily flung into the Puget Sound.

Annika working on her rock skipping technique

Conor opted for "biggest splash" instead of skipping his rocks

Annika's beach combing treasure

Conor's beach combing finds

Eric waiting for Jack to join us on the boat

Jack and Eric ... ready for a kid-filled, water-based boating adventure

Once it was show time, we boarded the boat and set off to check the crab pots Jack had dropped the night before. Both kids got a turn to drive the boat (much to their great pleasure). Bestefar taught them how to read the GPS display on the dashboard (do boats had dashboards??) and steer the boat in the direction of the crab pot coordinates. Unfortunately for us, the first pot was picked by someone else (the big jerky crab thieves!!), so we didn't get any goodies from that pot. The second pot, however, was teaming with crabs. Take that, you crab swipers!

After re-baiting and re-dropping the crab pots, we started the fishing portion of our adventure. We set out in hopes of catching salmon. No such luck. We did, however, manage to catch two dog fish, so the kids were able to say they caught something, at least. The fish were anything but biting... poor Jack had to work an insanely long time to even snag a second dog fish so both kids could have the bragging rights of catching a fish. 

Without a doubt, Annika's Norwegian heritage shows when she's on the boat with Bestefar. She's intrigued with the entire process and thinks fishing is great fun. She rarely (if ever) expresses boredom. She pays attention to everything Jack does, from prepping the bait and putting it on the hooks, to reading the GPS, to understanding how the water changes based on tides. Conor, on the other hand, was a bit less enthusiastic about sitting still, waiting, and ummmm... waiting some more. He did great when we were crabbing because there was lots going on, but the fishing part wasn't nearly as interesting for him. Maybe next year, when he's a bit older, he'll think it is more interesting for a longer amount of time.

Eventually, we called our fishing excursion a bust, collected the crabs from the pots that we baited at the beginning of our outing, and headed back to land. Our final tally for the day was 2 dog fish (not kept), 8 crabs (keepers... threw many that were too small or female back), 2 pinched fingers (Eric and Jack both got a finger caught by a crab ... this was Jack's first pinched finger in 50 years! Eric's crab got him so hard that it broke through his fingernail!!) 

When we got back to the house, Jack whacked the crabs (when you kill a person, you say they're sleeping with the fishes ... when you kill a crab, do you say it is sleeping with the people??) and then we boiled them up and popped 'em in the fridge. The next day, I spent over 2 hours shelling crab. At that point, I was really glad we hadn't caught any more of those tasty critters. :)

We are so grateful for the fun day, yummy crab, and treasured memories. At one point while we were on the boat, Jack and one of the kids were driving the boat, and I had the almost core-of-my-being desire that the kids hold onto the memories from the day. I hope they store details like how much their Bestefar loves the water, fishing, and crabbing; how he taught them how to bait crab pots; and how happy they were on this day waaaaaay down deep in their memory banks so they can recall a wonderful day. Yes, I got a bit nostalgic that day.... and I hope they can be nostalgic about it one day, too.

Hey kids: Your grandparents are amazing people who love you dearly. Remember that .... always!!!

Conor and Annika ready to set sail

Annika driving the boat

Eric and Annika pulling up the crab pot

The sea's bounty

Eric and Jack measuring the crabs to ID the keepers

We'll call you two "Crab Cakes" and "Tasty"

Bestefar and Capt. Conor, at your service

Bestefar

Bestefar, Annika, and Conor on the Puget Sound

Eric and Conor trolling

Our happy boating girl

"It was thiiiiiis big"

Annika and Bestefar taking us to the crab pots

Sibling Dinner at Morton's Steakhouse

Recently, my sister Suzanne) and her husband (Randy) were in town, partially because he had business here and partially as a pit stop on their way to their cabin. While they were in town, Suzanne, our sister-in-law (Staci), and I celebrated Suzanne's recent birthday (way to be a deck of cards, Suzanne!) by having lunch at The Barking Frog and then sampling some of the offerings from the tasting rooms in Woodinville. It was a marvelous, low-key, laughter-filled afternoon together. We ate marvelous food (although waited an insane amount of time for a black napkin, but oh well) and tried many tasty wines. The three of us shared a tasting at three different tasting rooms, so we got some lovely wines to sample, but not so much that we were stumbling through Woodinville.

A garden by The Barking Frog

Suzanne and Staci

Suzanne and Staci... up close and personal (and at a diagonal)

The slough reflecting the beautiful sky

A big dragonfly statue near the slough

The next day, we had a siblings' dinner out with my brother (Troy), Staci, Suzanne, Randy, Eric, and me. Suzanne and Randy suggested we eat at Morton's, which sounded great to the rest of us. We got all spiffed up and headed downtown.

Morton's is an old-school steak house, and I'm a little surprised we didn't see the likes of Al Capone and someone who goes by the nickname of Bugsy or Tiny Timmy Tuna at one of the nearby tables. Being a Tuesday evening, the restaurant was fairly empty, which meant there weren't many people for our loud, uproarious laughter to disturb... and we didn't have to wait long for our food. We told stories, reminisced, teased, joked, and acted like the goofballs that we truly are. It was such fun to reconnect with each other and just be together for a couple of hours.

When the topic of appetizers came up, we all agreed that a little nibble would be nice. Troy asked if anyone else would like to share a plate of oysters. Umm... nope!! Not a single taker, so he ate it all on his own. For every "mmmmm!!!" that escaped from Troy, an "ick", "blech", or "gag" was returned. As for dinner, everyone agreed that we ordered well. Eric and I both ordered the same thing: a plate that had filet mignon (YUM!), prawns, and bacon-wrapped scallops. Oh my... that's all I can say. Just oh my.... :)

Unfortunately for us (probably a good thing for the employees at the restaurant), our sibling dinner was on a work night, so we couldn't stay out gabbing as long as we probably would have had we gone out on a weekend. It was hard to pull ourselves away, but knowing work and waking up early were around the bend, we eventually said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways.

Due to rather convoluted reasons that aren't overly blog-worthy, Eric and I wound up driving Suzanne and Randy's car to the restaurant, so they could drive it to Idaho the next morning. Not wanting to drive two cars downtown, I suggested that Eric and I just take a cab or the like home. We wound up trying out Uber car and cannot say enough about it. We used the app to summon a car (wow - how snooty did THAT sound?) and a driver picked us up within 5 minutes. We could even see his car approach on the app's map. The car was impeccably clean, the driver was very courteous, and we were home in a snap. All in all, a wonderful experience.

Staci and Troy... so cute!

Randy and Troy ... da photobombers of Morton's

One guess who does and doesn't like oysters!

This is what happens when Suzanne is emphatic about her topic of conversation

What a sharp lookin' group!

Staci wanted in on the photobombing action, too

Troy, aka the peace sign photo bomber, with Suzanne and Randy

The Daring Bakers July 2014: Cake with a Colorful Surprise

This month's baking challenge was all about internal surprises. Instead of focusing on the exterior of the cake, we were challenged to make the inside of a cake a colorful surprise. So, for the 4th of July, I decided to make a red, white, and blue cake. Ta da!

This challenge couldn't have been more timely. I decided to go for a patriotic theme for the 4th of July. My co-workers were thrilled (and wowed) with this pre-holiday treat. I used a go-to white cake recipe and colored it to replicate the colors of our flag.

Contrary to popular belief, this cake wasn't created by pouring concentric rings of batter around each other. Instead, this cake was made by pouring the cake batter on top of the previously-poured batter. As each ring is poured into the center of the cake pan, the previous rings are pushed out toward the edge a bit more. Cool, huh??

Ready for the oven

Ready to stack the cakes; the colors remind me of rings in a tree

Stacked and frosted!

 For the July Daring Baker’s Challenge, Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to bake a cake. But not just any cake; she asked us to add in a special surprise for our eyes as well as our taste buds!

Wet Summer Day

We here in Western WA know that we aren't made of sugar and the rain won't melt us. After a rather long spell without notable rain, we are rejoicing a bit to have our plants watered by nature! As soon as Conor saw the rain, he scrambled to don his clothes, boots, and jacket so he could make the most out of all the puddles on our driveway.

SPLASH!

Whoa! Good one!

Sploosh!

Wheee!

Backyard Climber

For a year or two, I've been haranguing guiding Eric toward the idea that our kids would like to have some sort of play structure in our back yard. He agreed that they would enjoy something, but his question was for how long? Would we sink time and energy into something that wouldn't get played with once the novelty wore off?

Eventually, after much badgering conversing, Eric decided to give it a go. He got to sketching and came up with a really fun design that we could build. The big plus is his design is modular, so we can build the initial structure now and then add on things like swings, a slide, etc. later on if we so choose.

Last weekend, we broke ground and got to work. Eric gets all of the props for this project. It is his design and know-how that has gotten us to where we are. He figured out dimensions, required lumber and hardware, proper support, etc. The kids and I lend hands whenever we can and try to follow Eric's instructions as best as we can.

Our first day of work resulted in the basic structure. Nothing that could be played on, but we could see things taking shape. The second day of work left us with a play-able structure. It still wasn't done, but there was a platform for the kids to play on, rails, and a ladder.

As we were working on the climber, I asked Annika what she thought the climber could be when it was done (encouraging creative play and all...). I said that it could be a castle, a pirate ship, a rocket, a boat, etc. Nope! Annika told me it would be a castle and that's all it would be. She would be the princess and Conor would be the prince. Nothing else. OK then! :)

We'd hoped to get the upper "walls" on the structure on Sunday, but Mother Nature had other plans. We opted to avoid electrocuting ourselves while using power tools in the rain and took the day as one to get other, more indoor, things taken care of ... like folding laundry, vacuuming, etc. Not nearly as fun as working on the climber, but important nonetheless.

Phase 1 under way

Our lumber haulers

We did lots of lumber hauling!

Annika checking out the view from on high

Conor's first time on the climber

Conor helping clear some dirt with this plastic excavator

Annika teaching the bolt who is in charge

Ready for the floor!!

Annika keeping an eye on Eric's progress

Conor trying out the newly build ladder