So the day after Kayla's party we woke up at 3:30 in the morning, got ourselves packed with coolers for lunch and water, snacks, epi pens, etc, woke the kids up and headed out the door at 4:30 am to head to the shore for some crabbing. The weather forecast was iffy but based on the 3:30 am radar we chanced it. Of course, shortly after leaving the house we headed INTO torrential downpours which lasted for the entire drive. We made it to the boat landing before my parents and sister and when they called to see what it was doing, I told them we were in a monsoon. I had followed the radar the whole way down on my iphone so at least I knew we were, at 5:30 am, at the outer edge of the storms. So by the time 6:00 rolled around and the boat place was open it was nothing but clear skies. It ended up being a fantastic morning on the water and even though it was still July and early for crabbing season, we caught 2 bushels of crabs that were both 3/4 of the way full.

All the kids had a blast and the only bummer was we needed 2 boats so the kids had to waive to their cousins across the water. But they were all too busy catching crabs anyway. Kayla didn't need time to warm up this year but she kept losing crabs off her line because she would keep pulling it up and would pull the crab out of the water before we could get the net to her. Alysa, on the other hand was a natural. She instinctively knew to STOP pulling her line up as soon as she saw she had a crab and wait for the net. Pretty amazing for a 3 1/2 year old. Although unfortunately when my Mom ever-so-brilliantly decided it would be a good idea to use pliers to fetch some bait that fell in the bushel with the crabs and got "bit" by a crab that all ended. My mom screamed and Alysa crumpled in fear. She would not go near the lines or traps again the rest of the day and freaked out every time we brought a new crab into the boat. She liked them much more once they were cooked. Hopefully she'll forget about that by next year.

It was a great day and we ended up sharing the crabs with neighbors and coworkers and still had a ton to eat. Mmmmm...Yum!