never enough days at the beach

beach umbrella

week before last, we were at the beach. and yes--it has taken me this long to get around to writing about it. i have been so freakin' busy catching up from being gone a week, i haven't had time to do much of anything personal since we got back. i am getting back into my groove now, though--this promises to be a really long post.

bananas foster

meredith and i cooked a lot over the course of the week, as we always do. we kind of trade off being each other's sous chef. it's amazing how much we eat and how little we end up spending on it! we spent more on the three times we ate out than we did on the food for the whole rest of the week. for breakfast we had french toast, shrimp and grits, scrambled eggs and thyme with bacon and cheese grits, etc. for dinners, we went all out. we had a beer-boiled shrimp night, a grilled tuna night, a mahi mahi tacos night, a pasta night with lots of fresh shellfish cooked in white wine and lemon... we also made strawberry rhubarb pie, and little key lime pies, and the highlight of all the desserts, the dessert we got to set on FIRE: bananas foster! meredith and i read all these safety precautions, made fun of people who need safety precautions in the kitchen, and then proceeded to follow NONE of them. the heat from the fire actually blew my hair back! it's hard to tell in this picture, but my arm is actually IN the fire. stupid? maybe. fun? yes. will we do that again? DEFINITELY.

hippie chillin' on the deck

the hippie spent the week either working or hanging out smoking ceegars on the deck with grant and brent and jeff and chad. he's so cute when he's all laid back and chillin'--i could just eat him up! but i digress... those boys went through about 4 bottles of scotch and a couple of bottles of whiskey as well. meredith and i forewent that for some pineapple infused vodka martinis (from last month's bon appetit). the vodka took a couple of days to make, but it was damned fine in the end. and our drinks were absolutely GORGEOUS--isn't that what really counts?

ella in her li'l critter hat

i did a little knitting at the beach, even though i STILL have not gotten started on the crumpets top. i DID manage to whip out this little pink critter hat for ella, using yarn i found for less than two dollars in a really random craft store the hippie and i stumbled across while out shopping for his new kite. the hat came out really cute, fit her perfectly (i totally guessed!), and turned out to be a good idea, as it was pretty chilly on the boat when we went sailing--she wore the hat the whole time. :)

left to right: grant, brent, meredith,
ella, jeff, carrie, jackie, jason, chad

the requisite group shot of the group as we are sailing back into the harbor at beaufort after going on a sunset sail. yes, meredith is actually driving the boat! this has become such a tradition for us. this is the 6th year that we have managed to go on vacation together. some have not made it every year, but meredith, jeff, grant, and i have gone every time. i hope we are still going in 30 years, when the kids are having kids. i love these people so much--they are, as meredith said, part of our chosen family. what a fabulous week--i wish we had stayed longer...

there are a ton of pictures in the new gallery the hippie made on our web server--check them out here.