Easter Weekend

This past weekend I went on an amazing Easter Retreat with a bunch of friends! It was so lovely to get out of town and spend a fun, relaxing weekend with great people. We left Tacoma in the late morning and stopped at Fat Smitty's for lunch. I've driven past Fat Smitty's more times than I can count but I've never stopped there, so when everyone asked where we should stop for lunch, I knew it would be the perfect place. Apparently they are famous for their Fat Smitty burger (which was huge!). They have dollar bills hanging on every surface of the place and in the back room where we were seated there was a huge collection of M&M paraphernalia! Haha. It was certainly quite the destination. I'm glad I finally got to go!

(Group photo via Lindsy)

I thought Dan looked particularly fetching in his Geoducking get-up. Well, it's pretty much what he wears every day, but look how seafaring and manly he looks with his pants rolled up and his shovel! Haha. He and Ben work for a company that buys Geoducks (pronounced Gooey-Duck) from harvesters and then sells them overseas to China, where apparently they are a delicacy. Neither of them had ever dug up a Geoduck before, though, so they set out on a quest to get one. Unfortunately they didn't get one. Maybe next time!

It was really fun to play on the beach and look at sea creatures in the warm sun. I adore living near the ocean. I'm not sure I could live somewhere that wasn't near a body of water. The native word that this bay is named after means "Quiet Water" because there are sand bars that keep the big waves out of the bay, making it incredibly peaceful and calm. Sitting out on the dock at high tide is so peaceful. The lack of noise is almost unsettling. I think we get so used to the constant noise of living in populated areas that the calmness of nature gets to be such a foreign thing. I love it.

Ruthy took this photo of us emulating the old American Gothic pose, haha!

We ate AMAZING food all weekend. Andy (Ruthy's husband) made us an incredible seafood boil on Saturday night and we all just ate off the table with our hands. It was messy and delicious and so much fun. There was crab legs, crawdads, shrimp, sausage, corn on the cob, potatoes... oh man. So delicious. Then on Easter morning we had pancakes with fresh fruit on them and condensed milk and honey (which I'd never had on pancakes before!). Yum!