Friday Fave: fresh lobster

I’m in Maine so that means FRESH LOBSTER!

There’s a dock just a few miles from where we’re staying that we visit every other day. If you saw my reel yesterday, that’s the place.

Honestly if I had my choice I’d probably choose a lobster roll, but there’s something about cracking open your own personal lobster!

Lesson learned and Pemaquid Point

Last night we had asked Owen to take out the lobster waste and set the bucket inside the garbage bins (because it was too dark to go too the beach and dump in the water—but it couldn’t stay in the house or be left out where animals could get it.

Never underestimate the non-listening power of a teen brain. This is what we found in the morning. He somehow missed that we said to put the lobster shells IN the garbage bin and just left it on the porch. So then he got the glorious job of cleaning it all up! We all had a good laugh.

Exploring on our beach again!

Then it was off on another adventure—to my mom’s favorite spot: Pemaquid Point!

When we got home, Katie wanted to swim but it was a little too chilly.
Us girls had a nice time catching up on the beach.
Of course, lobster for dinner!

You’ve seen the lobster dinner, now see our dessert! Everyone loves strawberry shortcake!

Lobster, lobster, lobster!

When in Rome…

When vacationing in Maine, fresh lobsters straight from the dock are mandatory. You’re looking at nine lobsters coming in at 18-ish pounds!

Yesterday’s leftover lobster getting made into lobster rolls for lunch!
Katie loved exploring on the beach and looking for sea glass. She’d send us pictures when she found things!
Beth and Kath flew in today for the long weekend!
We dared Katie to touch a lobster again.
Grauntie Rose offering to take Katie’s share of lobster.
Mmmmmmmmm.

Friday Fave: Rum punch

I always thought I didn’t like rum…but as it turns out I don’t like SPICED rum or coconut rum. So when we were on our family cruise in 2019 and our snorkeling with the turtles excursion came with unlimited rum punch, I learned that I actually quite liked rum punch. But it wasn’t really a drink we made ourselves.

Fast forward a bit to our friend David saying he made the best Trinidadian rum punch…and by golly he did. Wow. So every now and again he’d make a batch for us and we actually drank it so much we kinda tired of it. (It was even a favorite drink at the 2022 Hudson Summer Bash.)

But every once in awhile now we’ll have it again…but there’s no way the four of us can finish it these days, so that means we get leftovers! So I know what I’m drinking tonight!!

Are you a rum punch fan?

Exploding watermelon!

Well this is a new one. I had the watermelon sitting on the dining room table for a few days in preparation for the party. I went to get it today to cut it and saw the entire table was soaked. And then I heard bubbling and gurgling…and I went to roll it over and it exploded and gushed all over. Dripping through the table, puddles on the floor!

Turns out it’s a real thing. Lots of people have been posting videos of this craziness.

The rind was paper thin and was just so bizarre.

Friday Fave: Crab Rangoon + Year 22 of Chinese

Our annual tradition of Chinese on our anniversary (we’re at 22 years!). Sometimes it’s dinner, sometimes it’s lunch. It’s usually Crab Rangoon and General Tsos chicken but today we went outside the box with coconut shrimp and it was super delish!

Today’s were the most unusual shape we’ve ever seen—cute little octopi!

BTW, if Crab Rangoon is on a menu I’m getting it. And especially if it’s our wedding anniversary—we randomly had Chinese after our wedding and then randomly had it on our anniversary for the first few years so now it’s obviously a tradition!

The Len Christmas in July is over!

It’s now just a gathering with food (lots of food!) and catching up…and euchre!

Plus we get the chance to get the kids together for comparison pics!! (They were all really good sports about it, too!)

Nick (18) and Owen (14) have been going back-and-forth over the years, but Owen is taller now (he was taller than everyone except Tom!).
2013—Katie (1) • Owen (4) • Aubrey (almost 5) • Grace (almost 7) • Nick (almost 9)
The three close birthdays!

Friday Fave: Sam’s shrimp ceviche

If y’all know anything about me, you know I love Costco and Sam’s Club. I have so many favorites at each place it would be hard to narrow it down to just a few things.

But today, I’m going to tell you about my new favorite thing from Sam’s Club—🦐 Shrimp ceviche! You may scoff at getting something like this from a warehouse club, but it was really good! Plentiful shrimp, fresh veggies, decent cost—I will admit that it needed salt, and then I ended up putting a little too much in … but I still had to stop myself from eating the whole thing in one sitting. 🤤

Exotic snack store attack!

I looooove chips. So I might have gone a little crazy at the local exotic snack store!

The last time I did something like this was probably over a year ago when Tom and I wandered into a Japanese grocery store and we bought a bunch of chips (and I think we only have one bag left—we just open a bag every now and again and do a taste test with Anna and David). So I dragged her along with me…

I know the flavors are probably hard to read, so I’ll share a few:

  • Roasted Cumin Lamb Skewer
  • Salted Egg
  • Fried Crab
  • Seaweed
  • Sweet Basil
  • Spicy Garlic
  • Sichuan Pepper
  • Wild Mushrooms and Sour Cream
  • Creamy Forest Mushroom
  • Green Onion
  • Scallop Butter Garlic
  • Salmon Chili Lime

Magic Spoon cereal? Meh.

We wanted to try it after seeing tons of ads for it—we were intrigued. So we finally forked over $10 for a box and…meh.

As you can see — the bag is only half full. And it was a smaller box to start. The taste was okay — it definitely didn’t taste like the sugar cereals of our youth like they claim. That said, it wasn’t bad…but I wouldn’t waste your money on this unless you really REALLY specifically needed this type of product and just couldn’t live without cereal.