Friends

“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

The past 3 months have come and gone so quickly while we've had more than a few celebrations and adventures at Hytte. Birthdays, Memorial Weekend, Fourth of July and other fantastic weekends spent with friends. Here's snapshots of a few events that I want to remember from the summer of '17.

---

In the middle of May Lola invited a bunch of friends over to Hytte to celebrate her birthday. I was inwardly celebrating not only her birthday, but her choice of venue for the party! I am very grateful that my teens choose to spend time at Hytte and am not so naive to think it would be the same without the high-speed internet connection.

This birthday celebration commenced smack in the middle of May, more than a bit to the north of California and Hawaii. That being said, this band of friends all decided that it really was warm enough to go swimming. They wanted to be the first of Hytte's guests to go for a swim, and they were. We all know that this amazing weather we are experiencing now was not on Mother Nature’s agenda back in May. It was cloudy, Patagonia-cool and on the verge of drizzling the entire weekend. Perhaps Polar bear challenges in the frigid water should now be an annual event for her birthday.

---

Crabbing season has opened for the summer season, and we have been trying with valiant effort to find a few those buggers. I feel confident that we will eventually get the hang of it, but we certainly look and feel like newbies out there pulling more empty pots then I care to admit. I dream of a summer full of Dungeness, wherein each and every one will be cherished. Recently, our neighbors 2 cabins down the beach -a quiet family of folks who have been crabbing these waters for decades, came over and gave us some friendly advice about bait and location. We have since begun to catch a few.

---

Over Memorial weekend we got around to finally tackling some deck repairs. Racer's foot went through a deck board the night before the repairs began, making the timing for this project absolutely perfect. Rotten spongey deck boards, crumbling stair treads and a missing section of stair railing were replaced with the help and guidance of our very kind friends. We broke in the paella pan that night, and the weather was perfect for a paddle. They have secured many summers worth of deck rights.

---

4th of July wouldn't be the same without watching a fireworks display, and we had a front row seat to an awesome show. Some friends were taking their new sailboat around the sound for an inaugural sail that weekend and decided to set anchor not far from Hytte to watch the local fire works display. We were lucky enough to be invited to join them for the evening!

---

That same weekend we bought a little rowboat. We had seen it for sale a week earlier at a garage sale and couldn't stop thinking about it. The boat was so darn cute, sitting there in the seller's driveway with it's colorful sail raised ready to go, whispering to us to take it home and have an adventure. Our crabbing experience needed some major help and the price was right. We don't know how to sail, but we know some people who do...

How convenient (or was it planned) that we had more friends over for a day that next weekend. They said that they were happy to help us haul down to the water it if we bought it. Say no more! Gage was off to see if it was still for sale, and came back with the boat on the top of my car. It was a taxing, over-head and down 104 very narrow steps journey for the guys - and the little boat. The best part of the boat story is that these friends, the ones who help carry little boats, also happen to have a 4hp motor that they said we could use at Hytte. for crabbing. I think have insured themselves a constant supply of crabs from us -when we start catching them.

Cheers' to catching crabs and sharing them with your friends! Have a great summer.