2015 Memorial Day Weekend at the Texas Coast

My daughter Bethany put it best when she described our weekend at the Texas coast to friends before she made the long journey from Lubbock.  She said, "We will be with dear friends where I can be myself and just relax!"  Memorial  Day weekend has always been a special time for us where we usually camp with our girls and friends at the lake, but for a change this year we spent it with our dear friends Tommy and Melinda Smith and their sweet family at their beautiful beach house at Rollover Pass just off Galveston Island.

This lovely beach house was built by an Amish builder with
 peg construction.  Love it!

My husband Scott and Tommy have been friends since grade school.  They've always continued their friendship and seemed to just 'get each other' like no friend I've seen him have.  His parents were and are very dear to us.  Tommy's boys and our girls grew up together as we in turn raised our little families.  Some of our favorite memories together will always be floating the Big Cypress Creek to Caddo's bayous and lake loaded with the biggest and best water guns ready to blast each other just about the time we got to the state park.  We'd do this every summer for about five years on Memorial Day and usually have our other great friends Rex and Carol Thompson and their kids in tow.  We'd pack huge lunches and sit under the Cypress trees that dripped with moss and enjoy the beauty that is Caddo, the largest natural bayou and lake in Texas. 

I remember all of us having football parties after the Friday night game where we'd each bring an appetizer and the kids would put on their pj's while we'd all visit.  It's times like these our kids still remember and my oldest daughter Ilissa mentioned that weekend that we sure did like to have a lot of get together's with our friends she remembered growing up!

In the past year with all of our lives getting busier and kids growing up and off at college we haven't spent near the time together we should have, but we fixed that this weekend. 

A little kite flying with enough wind to keep it up until the storms came.
Anything for the baby girl of the group!

Skim Surfing.

Our youngest daughter truly enjoyed her weekend and the beach!

So it was only fitting that we spend Memorial Day weekend with Tommy, Melinda and their sweet kids Brad, Ryan, Kayla, Kara and exchange student from Italy Clara.  We swam, dodged a few rain storms, the men fished and we ate everything from fresh seafood the men caught to steaks while catching up, playing board games and dominoes.  Melinda and I both enjoyed cooking, sharing recipes and catching up about our kids. 

Board game fun.

Melinda is a fantastic cook and wowed us all weekend with some of her recipes.  Her french bread was absolutely delicious and we could have made a meal out of it alone.  The steak marinade was equally as good.  So good in fact that we even ate the leftovers for breakfast the next day along with some repurposed baked potatoes that I sauteed in butter and Tony Chachere's.  The Redfish and Sea Trout were a real treat coming from the men's previous days catches and there was enough left over for us each to bring home some frozen for later meals.

Melinda making her 'Smashed Potatoes' that were delicious!

With or without cheese these potatoes are fantastic!

Click here for the recipe for Melinda's Smashed Potatoes!

Preparing the Sea Trout for the grill with Olive Oil and Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning.

Tommy preparing the Sea Trout for the grill.

Sea Trout, Melinda's Smashed Potatoes, her garlice bread, and The Ranch Kitchen's Sauteed Squash.  Just make this squash recipe without the potatoes!

This Red Fish was wonderful!

It's a weekend I hope to repeat soon and one we will always have fond memories of.  I'm so proud of their kids and when you have special friends you should always make time to make more memories.