Clamming obsession

So during my time away from school and blogging, I spent a couple of days at the Oregon Coast with Craig and his parents, and a couple of their friends.  The tide was low on Wednesday and Thursday of June 15/16, so we spent the mornings digging for razor clams, and the evenings drinking, chatting, cooking, and having fun.  I'd never been clam digging before, but am now OBSESSED.  It was a lot of fun procuring food for the dinner table, and the fact that my shellfish license had been bought and unused (a whole $7 for residents in Oregon), it was well worth the money.  The clams were delicious, and I couldn't wait to go back out...now to just wait for a super low tide!

Craig's dad even bought me a brand new clam gun! And it's blue!!  How awesome is that?!  Being that I couldn't wait to go back out, Craig and I went to the coast yet again to harvest anything we could...this time, it was mussels.  We went out for only one night in Warrenton, OR and stayed at a cute little beach house.  It was our friend (and my save the date/invitation designer extraordinaire), Seyoung's, birthday the day before, and she and her boyfriend let us tag along for the trip.  Craig and I harvested mussels on Saturday afternoon, and we all went back to the house to clean them up and make some yummy chowder.  I will admit, it was quite a chore, as the house was equipped with wood stove (seriously) to cook on, and an couple of low-heating separate electric coiled cook tops.  We probably cooked a total of 6+ hours making that chowder, but it was such a blast!  We drank wine, ate cheese, crackers, and chips, chatted, and overall just had a blast.  We also made a nice little fire in the backyard and had some smores (which Seyoung had never made before!!!), had more libations, and finally tried our "chowder" at around 1:30am.

We ended up eating the chowder the next day for...brunch?  It was a great trip, and I was so happy to be able to do this before rotations started up for me (this week).  Thanks, Zach and Seyoung! We had a blast!

Phone picture--the chowder with crusty garlic-Parmesan cheese bread! Yum!

From my phone--the mussels all cleaned up:)

Me, being a turd in the kitchen.

Seyoung and I in the kitchen cooking up a storm...and drinking;)

Craig and Seyoung cleaning mussels

Enjoying the smores, beer (from chalices), and the awesome fire.

Just as a side note, invitations are coming along slowly, but surely.  My friend, Seyoung, really is super talented.  She's also an awesome writer.  READ/SUBSCRIBE TO HER BLOG!!  She does a lot of makeup reviews and writes funny comics:)  You can also check out her artwork here.