We're back from our little trip to Kiawah Island, after which we promptly set out to Ohio to see family....and now we're back from that too. While on Kiawah, we ventured out to the Isle of Palms for a crabbing excursion and crab boil on the beach. We were very proud of our catch, as you see from Ryan's grin in the picture above. We switched duties, sometimes with Ryan holding the line and me the net, and then the other way around. We were a pretty good team. Crabbing is definitely a game of patience. You basically put raw meat at the end of the line, throw it out, and slowly draw it in, hoping that a crab will catch the scent and start to follow it. The waters were really muddy that day, so we couldn't see the crab at all and started watching for little movements in the water, blindly putting down the net when we thought we had one. I think we caught six crabs total, which we like to tell ourselves was above average for the group.

And we ate at the BEST low country bbq place, JB's Smokeshack. In my opinion, what makes good bbq is the taste of the smoke in the meat, and this was the best tasting bbq I'd ever had. We got the buffet, which included fried chicken, mac 'n cheese, hash, spare ribs, smoked chicken, brisket, corn fritters.....oh my. I'm not embarrassed to say that I ate my fill and that we made a second trip back before we left the island. If you are near Charleston sometime, yes, for goodness sake, eat at one of the fancy restaurants in town. But if you have time, drive out to this unassuming little shack and eat with shameless abandon.

I can't forget to mention that I did lots of knitting on the beach and I saw Angel Oak, a beautiful oak tree estimated to be 1,500 years old. And I did all of the things on my little list that I made up in the last post, except for riding bikes....but that's okay because it rained part of the time.

It's incredible how revived you can feel from taking just a few days away. I came back home feeling rested and renewed, and this helped me to have energy to launch into new projects.