Crabbing with the Family on our Beach Getaway

Stacy Lyn and family walking down the beach after catching crab — A nice little beach getaway was just what we needed. How I cherish this time together with my family all in one place! And the meal that came afterwards was pretty good too!

For the past few years I’ve been realizing that I’m not going to have the kids all together much longer without someone needing to be absent, whether it’s for work, school, or some other commitment. I know it’s a good thing for kids to be independent and contribute to the world in their own ways, but I can’t help but feel a little pang in my heart that they aren’t all babies anymore.

My dream is to have all my kids following God to such a degree that they are all doing exactly what they are meant to do in their lives. I can’t wait to see what adventures and journeys their lives take them on. In the meantime, I want to make the most of the time I have with them.

Stacy Lyn emphatically holding up a freshly caught crab — I wanted to get some quality time with the family, so we went down to the gulf to catch some crabs together. And boy did we ever catch some crabs! Check out my crab cake recipe to see what we did with these crabs when they were ready to cook!

To ensure we all get that quality time together, I have decided to plan at least four short getaways each year, and I’ll strongly urge all of my adult kids to attend. I know plans don’t always work the way we want them to, so I’ll keep an open mind about that. At least at this point, I still have four children under 17 that I can count on being there. Although the older kids have so far been with us every time we’ve gone out of town or on a trip, much to my delight.

I’ve been quite blessed really, with my kids wanting to be home as much as they’ve demonstrated they do. The three oldest have all chosen to attend college pretty close to home, so I have four more years with each of them! My oldest is in dental school only two hours away, so on most weekends I get to see him.

We have a slew of birthdays from July through October, so I decided that last weekend would be one of those four getaway weekends I was talking about above. All but one of the kids were able to go! To be honest, I feel so far behind in caring for my home, business, and life, so I really needed that weekend to catch up. But do you really ever catch up? Sigh.

Stacy Lyn and family picking through a pile of fresh caught crab — We had to get the whole family working together to prepare these crabs for our feast!

The trip was so very worth it! There was a “jubilee” of crabs up close to the shore. We had a blast catching them with nets. Of course, we let the pregnant mommas go to keep those wonderful crabs producing. It’s all about conservation.

Boiling fresh caught crab — After catching the crabs, we all worked together to lug them up to the house for boiling.

They are nimble little critters! When we filled a baby pool full of them, we all took part in lugging them up to the house, where we boiled them. Then we took them out on the porch and spent a few hours removing the meat from the body and claws. I don’t know if you’ve tried getting the meat out from a cab, but it is incredibly difficult. Now we know why crab meat is so expensive. Still, it was a fun time for all. I adore these happy moments!

Since we were celebrating birthdays, we had a fish fry (almost a family tradition at this point), and I made a ton of crab dishes! They were amazing—talk about Ocean to Table!