The Summer Wind

This past weekend was "Family Weekend" down the Cape with Andrew's family. We've all had a crazy summer, and they are good people and always have a revolving door down there -- so it was really nice to just kick back and relax with some good friends, food and fun.

Andrew and I drove down Friday night after a pitstop at not one, but TWO Marathon Sports locations to pick up new running shoes. I was hoping to make it until early September with the pair I had but, unfortunately for my wallet, my super flat feet said otherwise. :( I'm planning to do a full review of my new sneaks soon, but since I've only run one long, 5-mile run in them, I want to give them a fair shake and need to do some more mileage before sharing my opinion with the world.

After a bright-and-early wakeup for that 5-miler, we had big plans for the day: a real, true, New England-style Clambake! We loaded up the truck with SO MUCH STUFF, then schlepped it all to a local island. One large hole, a bunch of rocks, some newspaper, seaweed, a wet tarp and 6 hours of fun in the sun later, dinner was served!

The "oven" -- SO COOL!

Cheesecloth packages full of lobster, mussels, clams, shrimp, onions, potatoes and corn.

But it wasn't a rock... it was a rock LOBSTER!

Butta melted in a tin pan over hot coals.

Because Andrew and I don't really care for lobster (it's not that we hate it, but it's "wasted on us", really, because neither of us particularly love it), his mom made us separate bags full of vegetables and the most perfectly, juicy and delicious swordfish. We also each tried a mussel and a clam drowned in butter (still just "eh" to me. I'm going to have my Boston card revoked), and then I gorged myself on shrimp -- both his mom and dad felt bad because they didn't know I LOVE shrimp, so there was none in my bag o' tricks, and they very generously shared their portions with me!

We were all STUFFED afterward, but my family has a saying that, thankfully, Andrew's clan subscribes to as well: There's ALWAYS room for ice cream dessert! After indulging in that classic campfire delicacy, the Smore, it was getting pretty late, and so , salty and satisfied, we packed up and set off into the sunset.

The food, the weather, the company, the sunset, the stillness that settled over the water in the moonlight....

Saturday was sheer perfection.