Blue Eyed Bliss: Big 3-0 Weekend

Last weekend was full of fun. It was my big 30th birthday and Mother's Day! Lots of love for me. :) Our adventure started on Thursday. We picked Brooklyn up from school and headed to Edmonds to catch the ferry to Brett's parents. Being that we have a small army of children we drove separately so we could leave a car for Brett's parents to haul the kids around in. I got the kids and Brett got all of our crap. While Brett got to relax, I played endless games of I Spy With my Little Eye. I even tried to give up once which immediately prompted Brooklyn to shout, "Mommy, we are Krache's we NEVER give up." Lectures from my four year old, awesome.

I knew it was going to be an outstanding vacation when we saw dolphins from the ferry. Yep, dolphins. I had no clue we have dolphins here. It was pretty magical. Brooklyn and I really got a kick out of it. After getting the kids all settled in at Brett's parents we headed out to our destination, Ocean Shores. Kidless for three nights and four days...thank you in-laws!!

View from the condo.

I was super excited, I love Ocean Shores. We used to camp there every spring/summer growing up and I hadn't been back in quite a while. On our way there we decided to stop at the one fishable lake I found in the area, Lake Failor. You guessed it, it was a failure. No fish. But, it was a beautiful evening and we had fun none-the-less. After an hour or so, we packed up our poles and continued down to our destination, arriving just a the sun was setting. We picked up the keys to our condo (thanks Grandma and Grandpa Teece!) and loaded up on junk food and movies at the local market. Our condo was on the top floor with an awesome sweeping view of the ocean. So perfect. We got all settled in and watch The Green Hornet, we were pleasantly surprised and really liked it.

Saturday we woke up early because we are parents and apparently once you are parents you can no longer sleep in past 8:00 a.m. Awesome. So we got ready for our first adventure fueled on the best bear claw doughnut I have ever eaten. What, aren't you supposed to only eat junk food on vacation?!? The week before we left my Dad sent me an email letting me know that Razor Clam season was going to be extended to include the weekend we were going to be down there. Brett's Dad had a few clam guns so we thought, heck, let's try this out. How hard can it be? Hard? Very hard. But, surprisingly super fun. We started out on an illegal beach, nesting birds or something...oops. But, I believe it was the rope Gods that led us there. Rope Gods are Gods that lead you to 200+ feet of "good crabbing rope". Brett untangled this rope for a good half-hour while I ran for the car because it was POURING rain. The gathering of the rope was followed by pure joy on Brett's part. He would say things like, "Do you realize how many crab pots this will pull?" And, "this has to be worth at least a few hundred bucks." I would counter with, "Do you smell this rope? It smells like vomit, mildew and must." Ew. Anyhoo, after we corrected our path and headed down the coast a bit further, we limited in 45 minutes. You can only clam until noon so we headed back and after a quick outfit change decided that the weather (rain, rain, rain) warranted a movie. We lucked out and Fast Five was starting the exact time we pulled in to the parking lot. Decent movie, cute little theater (thanks for the tickets Mom & Dad). After the movie we grabbed some Fish & Chips and drove up the coast to scope out the next days clamming grounds. It was opened every morning that we were there so you better believe we harvested as much as we possibly could. Insert Brett lecture here, "We are Krache's, we live off the land." So, you better believe Saturday - my birthday - we were up with the sun and had our limit by mid-morning. It was a beautiful morning, the sun was even out!

Sexy hubby on the Jetty.

We headed back to the condo for a nap (me) and then headed out to walk on the jetty, a beautiful outcropping of rocks. The weather was still super nice so we soaked up some sun and got back to the car just as the rain started again. That night we walked to one of the nicer restaurants for a nice dinner and then took our time walking back. Sunday morning, you guessed it, we packed up the condo and headed out to clam for the last time. Gotta love double layer blisters on your hands! I could barely move but I still limited. I wasn't going to let those pesky razor clams win. All in all, it was a very relaxing, fun and adventure filled weekend. I was pretty shocked that we even managed to relax a little, a feat when Brett is around (I took a long nap while he was cleaning all of the razor clams). :)