Evolving Sweetie

Deception Pass Camping ~ Part 2 Day @ the Beach

Spent a wonderful sunny Saturday afternoon lounging at the Beach.

 

POSTCARDS from Deception Pass Beach

Views from Beach Spot

the kiddos

the ladies

My toes in the sand

The girls brave the water - the Sound is COLD!

Isabel 

Katie

Harry - googles and all

Alex tossing rocks

Here comes the fishermen

 

Micaela & Alex

A beautiful day

 

 

Deception Pass Camping ~ Part 1 Hike to the Bridge

This year the friend family (aka the gang) camped out at Deception Pass State Park campground. Lots of little hikes in the area, two beaches and a lake for swimming. We had a relaxing and enjoyable long weekend. Highly recommend the location, book early to get a good site. Some spaces are tiny.

I've a metric ton of pics 500+ (whittled down from 800!). Going to break my posts out into hikes or events and share a few of my favorities. 

Saturday morning alot of us hiked over to the bridge. Micaela & Thom took the girls earlier, but we did cross paths eventually. We lost Parker to the call of the water and his fishing rod.  But the rest of us had a great little hike. Fabulous views of the straight from the bridges.

 

POSTCARDS from Deception Pass Campground Hike to the Bridge

B & the boys

1/2 way there

Our beach - camping sites right behind the big black rock

Time to start climbing

Almost there

Crossing the Bridge

Views looking West from bridge

Long way down

Crossing under the bridge

Views of the Pass looking East

Hi Eric!

Harry & I

Back down to the beaches

 

Photo log - Dungeness Spit

Worked up a small photo book on the gang's camping trip to Dungeness Spit. Yes - it was that great a weekend! A while ago I posted the best people pics from our trip. Here's a few favs that weren't in the typical people shot category.

POSTCARDS from Sequim, WA.

Here's looking at you - 1

Here's looking at you - 2

Objects closer than they appear

Beach

Adrift

Missing you

First Annual Clam Bake

One of my favorite things about my friend family - affectionately "The Gang" - is we are big on celebrations. We'll try something once and if it was fun a new tradition is born. For a while B & I have been bandying about the idea of doing a good old fashion Clam Bake. You know the ones with lots of seafood, corn and potatoes that is dumped into the center to the table and its a free for all. We all live in close proximity to the beach at Magneson Park on Lake Washington. And decided it would be a great way to spend a late August friday night.  

Kismet lent a hand when I found the perfect clam bake pot at a random garage sale in June for $10. Sweet!  Today was great fun running to get ingredients. B & I took the kids to QFC to pick out the lobsters and crab. They had a blast picking out dinner. Then I baked up a batch of gooey chocolate chip cookies, prepped the corn, whipped up a pitcher of mojitos and headed over to the beach. A whole 4 minute drive. 

This was a new experiment for us all. And we learned a few things along the way. 

1. We needed a WAY hotter fire. Charcoal briquettes didn't cut it. 

2. Our pot was too full.  We placed the lobsters on top originally and it didn't give the clams much room to open up. Think we ended up crushing some of them. 

3. One can never have too many paper towels. And we quickly figured out why the picnic tables are supposed to be lined with newspaper. We omitted this detail.

4. A pitcher of mojitos is a great primer. Comfortably numb!

5. More fire!!!

6. Look into alternate methods of cooking the potatoes. Although Parker's dinner packet in foil was perfectly cooked.

7. Table clothes are disposable when newspaper is missing. 

8. Chocolate cookie sandwiches with toasted marshmellow centers ROCK.

9. Version 1.0 always has bugs. Next year we will work out the kinks.

10. And to quote Eric " You can take Jeannette out of the kitchen, but you can't take the kitchen out of Jeannette"". This was in reference to my bringing saffron, old bay seasoning, kosher salt, a pepper grinder and smoked paprika to add to our spice offerings. Love it!

POSTCARDS from the Inaugural Clam Bake.

Waiting for dinner

Our view

Kids taking a summer evening dip

Harry

Katie

Parker adding the vino - which made a killer broth

Say hi to dinner

Jack & Catherine's Dungeness Crab

B & Eric manning the pot

Starting to fill up

Filled to the rim

Self Portrait 

Katie found a fish - it was not pot worthy!

Eric - laughing

Jack & Catherine

Cory

B & I coordinated in reverse

Cool reflection in Parker's shades

Bill & Judy

Let the feasting begin! What you don't see is the big pot of clams & broth, 4 lobsters in various states of disarray, a steadily worked on crab and a grocery bag filled with bread. All of us lined the table and munched away. It was delicious, messy and a ton of fun.

@ the Beach - best of the people pics

POSTCARDS at Dungeness Spit during our annual camping trek. 

Alex, Parker & Harry @ overlook

Moi!

Micaela & Thom

Isabel & Katie playing

Bridget & Eric

Catherine & Jack

Isabel

Harry

Jnet, Parker & B

Alex

Katie

Alex & Micaela

The gang 

Off to Camp

Packing up the car this morning for our annual camping trip. This year we are staying by the Dungeness Spit by Sequim. Looking forward to quality friend time around the camp fire. More to come later this weekend.

When I think of camping this picture of Chuck always comes to mind...

Enjoy your weekend!

Teatime

Teatime at the Queen Mary was held this past Sunday. 5 years ago a small group of us ladies in the friend circle decided that we needed to set our own traditions. The men in our lives all had their poker nights, book-club AKA drinking nights, etc. Meanwhile, we seemed to only really see each other at various parties thrown throughout the year. And thus our tradition of going to tea began. 

It's evolved to a spring/summer outing to the Queen Mary for Afternoon Tea and a late Fall/Holiday potluck tea at one of our humble abodes. Every occasion is a treat. It's fun to see everyone sans kids and hubbies. And the menu fluctuates with the seasons, so each time is a little different. My favorite items this time were the little scrumptious bacon & onion savory cheesecakes and the decadent chocolate scotch bar. And you can never go wrong with a yummy scone with whipped butter & jam.

Looking around the table, I always think how lucky I am to have such wonderful women in my life. And how much fun it'll be as the years go by to store up these jewels of an afternoon. Although we all agreed that we'd never reach the tea frenzy that the group next to us shared. They were a group of 10 men & women all dressed in southern formal tea dresses and gorgeous hats. Looking splendid and were all roughly 20 years our seniors. Maybe by that age we'll pick up some hats.

Always we leave a little buzzed on tea, drunk on friendship and overly full. And I can tell you, its hard to find a better state of being.

Brunch Success

Last weekend was a very active weekend. I held a very successful summer brunch - as is now my tradition. Of course I made WAY too much food. But that is part of my deal. My whole table was filled with food. And I got the opportunity to bake which is my favorite. Made the Almond Meal Coffee Cake from Tartine with Raspberries. It turned out scrumptious as always.

And yes, I did try Bacon cookies. The recipe I linked to last week for Bacon Pecan lace cookies and Bacon Shortbread. The Bacon lace cookies were pretty easy to prepare and delightful, although mostly tasted like pecan buttery toffee cookies. I liked the bourbon twist. The bacon neither made or broke the recipe. 

The Bacon Shortbreads didn't make it to the table. They were made from whipping the bacon fat and adding baking ingredients. Frankly, they tasted like eating unflavored bacon grease - YUCK! And the fat in the cookie got so hot baking that they were scalding to touch test. Lost a finger print there. Immediately tossed the whole batch.

My last baking venture for the brunch was trying a new banana bread recipe. It was heavenly with or without walnuts. Definitely a keeper - replacing all my other bb recipes. I love breakfast bread recipes with buttermilk. It produced a very dense and moist breakfast treat.

Also had an array of brunch meats. More bacon that should be legally allowed - my whole condo and hall smelled of cooked bacon! Wonderful chicken and gruyere sausages - my favorite from Costco. And a trio of salami's from Salumi. The most unusual and biggest hit was their Mole salumi.

Add some fruit salad, mango, cheeses/crackers and herbed scrambled eggs and call it brunch. Of course you can't forget mimosas, good coffee and juice-boxes for the kids. 

Lovely to open my home and spend some leisure time with family and friends. A beautiful morning!