24 and still counting!

For our 24th Anniversary the hubby asked me what I wanted to do. We could have gone to a nice restruarant and had an romantic dinner for 2. I choose to order a bushel of crabs that we could share with our 3 boys, Sean, Josh and Ian.




This is Sean inspecting his crab. Sean had never picked crabs before. I had always picked them for him or he ate something else when we had crabs. He did a pretty good job overall but soon learned that if he didn't clean out all of the meat cavity and gave it to mom she would clean it out and give him back a nice pile of meat. He was pretty good with a mallet though on the claws.


Last time we had crabs Ian was just a small little one. Too little to learn to pick crabs and I would pick them for him. As with Ian he would soon loose interest as Mom just couldn't pick them fast enough to keep up with him...so he would wander off to play.

Now that Ian is almost 14 he got a crash course in crab picking. There is a method to it believe it or not! First you remove the legs. Then put your knife under the apron to pry apart the top and bottom shell. Then clean out the filters, intestines, and break off the some of the extra shell flap. (I know sounds gross) Push all that away and start breaking apart the meat cavaties. Yummo! The legs, I always leave for last, before getting another crab.


That's Josh.....veteran crab picker. He is the only kid that I knew at 8 and 9 years old that asked for a a bushel of crabs for his birthday party. Of course we had to have other food for his guest as not everyone liked picking crabs. Anyway, Josh can polish off a pile of crabs. He has an interesting way of eating crabs, even though I taught him, he picks the meat, sometimes piling it on a plate, sometimes eating it, but always piles the claws up for the very end.


Still picking 3 hours later...many clearings of tossed aside crab carcasses...Crab picking is a social thing...you pick, you talk, you pick some more and talk some more! LOL!


That's me still picking...Josh and I were still at it almost 3 1/2 hours later. I had to stop and rest for a bit but in an hour I was back for round 2.




That's my hubby....He's not a big crab picker...he picks some but prefers other things to eat that don't take as much work. You would think that growing up in Maryland he'd be the big crab eater as he spent many a summers with his great uncle and 2nd cousins at their place in Rock Hall crabbing along with many vacations down in Chincoteaque, VA.

So back to the reason for the crabs and picking. We were married 24 years ago at the courthouse in Baltimore County. Both our mothers were able to see us get married here. Nine days later we got married again at the Little Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas where both of our fathers were able to attend. So our anniversaries are the July 12th and July 21st. Now how lucky can a girl get to have 2 anniversaries? LOL!