The Claws

The claws have come out!  Tis true, but in a good way, of course.  I'm referring to our annual Valentine's seafood dinner!  If you regularly read this blog, then you'll know that my family has a tradition of eating lobster and crab on Valentine's day.  The traditional dinner has roots going all the way back to when my parents were first married.  They've been married for nearly 35 years now so ya'll can do the math.

I've written previous posts about this tradition and past dinners so you can access them HERE if you chose!  I love to look at some of those old pictures and reminisce. Today, I want to share pictures from our 2015 dinner!  This year we actually had a belated celebration due to scheduling conflicts, but it all worked out very well for the six of us (Mom and Dad, Jordan and I, and Scott and Elizabeth).

Days before our dinner it snowed/iced in the DFW area so, naturally, Texas closed and completely shut down.  That didn't stop our travel plans however.  Everyone made it to Mom and Dad's house safely.  Given the snow, we all have winter gear on and shivers in our smiles.

Top: Scott, Me, and Dad cookin' lobster!  This was actually a tester picture for me to figure out how to properly use my tripod but I like how the picture turned out.
Bottom Left: King crab legs!  I love the steam coming off these legs!  Yum!
Bottom Right: The belly of a lobster fresh out of the ice chest.  I guess we could call him Chester?

Top: Group photo!  Jordan, Me, Scott, Elizabeth, Mom, and Dad!  That's 6 lobsters, 1 for each person!  I want to give a big thank you to Mom and Dad because I know this meal is not cheap!  We took this picture with a timer and a tripod so that everyone could be in one shot.  I'm pretty lucky I didn't slip and fall on the ice running into the picture!
Bottom Left and Right: Dad and I goofing around with the lobsters.  Brrr it was cold! (by Texas standards anyway)

The seafood dinner is a special occasion but it's also sort of a dangerous event.  You have to be vigilant to make sure that people don't steal food right off your plate!
These are various pictures of the delightful food we had.  Veggie medley, cheddar biscuits, rib roast, red potatoes, salad, lobster, and crab!  

Once we were warm and tucked indoors, I was able to snag one more group photo before we all dug in.  Look at those lobster claws!  They were massive (and succulent)!

Before I knew it, the weekend was coming to a close and it was time to go home.  We'd offered to babysit Smaug Sophie for Mom and Dad since they had a trip coming up so we loaded up both dogs into the car and hit the road home.  The dogs have a love/hate relationship.  They do love each other but they like to hate each other too.  That's when the real claws started to come out.  In all honesty, we've enjoyed having little Sophie at our house but boy, these dogs fight like sisters!

Top Left: Sophie in her cutest state, sleeping peacefully.
Top Right:Thing 1 and Thing 2 perched to look out the window all day. (notice they are at least 2 feet apart)
Bottom Left: Sophie destroyed Abby's duck by surgically removing his squeaker entirely.  I guess the duck was in need of an appenductomy.  
Bottom Middle: Sophie doing her best adorable face (to make you forget about all the kleenex she shredded in the next room).
Bottom Right: Sophie pulled every single one of these toys out in an attempt to play with Abby, Jordan and I.  She's nothing if not persistent.

Here are a few videos from our first week with Sophie.  Both dogs are exhausted.

More pictures of the trouble makers:
Top Right: Fighting over a toy
Top Middle and Right: Taking turns sleeping in Sophie's bed.
Bottom Right: Abby is trying to defend her bone in this picture. Notice they are only 1 foot apart now.

Later that week we got MORE ice and snow!  It's highly unusual for our area to have so many ice days in a row.  I guess that is a small shout out to this blog's name sake, MarchSnow.  I was happy for the gift of a day off work in the middle of the week.  I don't know how I managed it, but I was able to  successfully convince Jordan to tackle our office.  Anyone ever feel like they might drown in paperwork?  I feel like there is so much paper in our lives and yet, we actually need to reference most of it on occasion.
This last Thursday Jordan and I were able to clean off the office desk and catch up on all our filing!  It feels really good to have that project behind us. 
This is our desk all cleaned up.  Wow, it's actually a dark colored wood, who knew!
Middle: This is our cleaned filing cabinet!  Looks so pretty!
I was really grateful for the gift of a snow day and even more thrilled that we put it to productive use!  It's nice that we could take care of all this jazz!

That's all I've got for you guys today!  Looking forward to St. Patty's day!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cheese it Up

Image
Sometimes I feel like Jordan and I live for the weekends.  We are very blessed to have each other, jobs that we both enjoy, an adorable pup, and a pretty house, so we definitely  enjoy the week days.  It's just that the weekends are when the action happens!  I don't know if we rest more during the week or the weekends! Last weekend was no exception.  We managed to strike the right balance of being productive while still having some leisure time.  Those are my favorite kind of weekends because that's a really tough balance to get! We recently planted some new flowers around our house which was a big chore.  I always get the spring bug this time of year (not the sickness).  I can't help it!  I don't have any sort of green thumb so I suppose this spring tradition will continue for years to come.  In the short time that we've had these pretty flowers, we've spent a lot more time outside.  The nice weather helps too!   Here's the run down of our new pl
Read more

July 4th with Family

Image
Happy July 4th...or 14th.  It's taken me a while to get around to sharing pictures from our Independence Day celebration but I've got 30+ pictures of family food and fun to share! There is no other holiday quite like the 4th of July in America!  Everyone takes off work to enjoy delicious food (and cold drinks), BBQ, and the faint smell of explosives in the air --- those bombs bursting in air! This year was even sweeter than previous years because my brother, Andy, and his family flew to Texas for a long visit!  I was so thrilled to see them all! Top Left: I do love a little flare!  I got a pedicure before the holiday and decided to go with a patriotic theme.  The design looks almost like a Wonder Woman theme which is equally awesome. Top Right: My brother, Scott, with his pup Lucy.  She is laser focused on the lake smells in this picture. Bottom Left: Me, my niece, Kenley, and Lucy!  Lucy sure has grown so much from when she was a puppy (see her Chri
Read more

Doodles and Drawings

Image
I've continued to have fun with my Tombow calligraphy markers that I talked about on my Tombow Watercolor post.  Pinterest is rich with unique and interesting art!  I've found that it's extremely relaxing to sit down and doodle with my markers while sipping quality wine and listening to some music.  It makes for a messy kitchen table but I feel very chill and in my own element! The only new piece of art I have to share is this "hustle" poster I made for a friend.  I began by playing with the texture of watercolor paper (verses usually using "media" paper).  The water and markers react completely different depending on the surface and paper.  I ended up with this woodland-ish doodle. Leaves are probably not the most interesting focus, but I had fun playing with the different shades of greens and browns along with the various textures of leaves.  I have so many shades of markers so it was a great opportunity to use them all!  For fun, I even
Read more