Weekend at The Beach

My middle 'Sprout' and I just spent the most wonderful weekend at Ocean Shores on the Washington Coast. The weather was surprisingly summer-like, the beaches were beautiful and free from the tourist crowd, and we needed a little R & R. The original purpose was a Women's and Teen's church sorta retreat, which we enjoyed thoroughly.

But the bonus for the weekend? During breaks and free time from the retreat seminars, we ended up spending a lot of time together walking the beach, chasing waves, enjoying the unexpected warm weather and sunshine, talking and and laughing and just having a whole lot more fun than I thought Moms were supposed to have with their teen-age daughters. I won't be forgetting this weekend for a very long time!

Well, except that I sometimes forget how teenagers entertain themselves with technology...
This is in the hotel room, one of those "suprise-attack" cell-phone pictures that my kids are famous for. Who needs a camera on a cell phone anyway? I mean, what is THAT! And why do you need to take pictures of your Mom!?!

And here are my toes in the sand - for those non-believers who know how much I usually try to avoid sand stuck to my feet. This was one of those times it did NOT matter!!


And last, but not least, since this is sometimes a food blog too, I will mention that we came fully equipped with a nice batch of my daughter's famous chocolate-chip cookies. You can't have a girl's weekend without chocolate, right?
She made them bite-size so we'd fool ourselves into thinking we weren't eating a huge amount. WRONG!
Yes, I've bragged these up before, but they are SERIOUSLY the best recipe (vegan or not!) that I've tried. And I think I've tried almost all of them, trendy Vegan cookbooks included!

Definitely a memorable treat. The whole weekend, not just the cookies!