I Caught Crabs!

Friday 25 April
Day one of our praise team retreat in Crystal Beach Texas:



Our rental house is steps from the beach. You can smell and hear the ocean. It is so peaceful and calming and exciting all at the same time!





We arrived around 5pm and Alto immediately got to making dinner for us while we explored the house and the beach.



I sat down on the deck with the ocean breeze and the sounds and smells of the ocean surrounding me and got out my guitar for the first time in many weeks. I flipped through my book and praised and praised while waiting for dinner to finish. Alto prepared us an amazing dinner and Flautist and Tenor set a beautiful table complete with disposable tablecloth and bubbly non-alcoholic juices. During dinner we had 5 Minutes Of Fame. I positively adore the seven other women I serve with on the Praise Team, but it occurred to me that I really don’t know that much about them so I asked them to be thinking about sharing with the group about their days. It was such a touching and amazing time of sharing and hearing about these incredible women and their incredible stories. It really deepened my affection and respect for each of them. We toasted to being here and we toasted to the 2 girls who could not make it on the trip(Pianist and Violinist).



After dinner we cleared the table and some of the ladies cleaned up the dishes. Then it was off to the beach! The beach. At night. Water about 70 degrees. Ahhh. It was still pretty windy so we decided not to build a fire for S’mores – maybe tomorrow. We walked up and down and discovered crabs! No, not the little handfuls of sand crabs that you find in the beaches in California, and no not the kind that they catch from the Bering Sea on Deadliest Catch. I guess they are somewhere in the middle. As the ladies slowly petered out and made their way back to the house, it was just Guitarist and I left – she with her flashlight and me with my camera. We were trying to capture pictures of the crabs which didn't work so then we decided we just needed to capture the crabs themselves. Picture two grown women in the dark on the beach squealing and jumping and running around. Alto came back from the house and asked if I had the key….oops! The poor girls had been sitting outside the whole time waiting for someone to come and let them in. After about 15 minutes of trying to brave up and actually grab a crab Guitarist says, “We should get the net from the house!” DUH! I said, “You’re so dumb! Why didn’t you think of that 10 hours ago??” *giggling childishly* So we came back, got the key, grabbed the fishing net and a bucket from the outdoor bathroom/storage room and went back with a purpose and a mission; to catch crabs! And we DID! We caught 5! That was such a fun and adventurous time, and also exhausting and possibly too much because now my throat hurts and I am exhausted. I caught crabs! Ha!