The Beach and the Seafood Connection

Earlier this month, the kids and I went to the beach on a warm, but windy day. I had been wanting to take some pictures of Kevin's seafood store so that he could revamp the store's website, and thought that playing in the sand and sun would be fun for the kids as well. My mom tagged along to help and we also called up Kevin's mom to see if she would want to meet us at the beach - she did, of course! :) Abby and Ben had a fabulous time playing in the sand, getting chased by the waves and spending time with their grandmas. Jake on the other hand hated it and I decided I wouldn't be returning anytime soon until he gets a little older. Wind, sand, sun, no bassinet, long car rides - all of these things made for a very grumpy almost 3-month-old.

(Click to view larger)

After several hours at the beach, we headed to the dock area so I could take some pictures of the seafood store. Unfortunately, I felt hurried since the grandmas were watching my kids and didn't want to keep them waiting too long, but I got a few decent pictures. It's hard to get creative when one is wondering if the baby is crying, thinking about the kids needing dinner soon, etc. :)

The next week Kevin and I spent many long nights overhauling the website. The original site had been thrown together shortly after Kevin opened the store, with the idea that it was temporary and that he would make a nice one later when it wasn't in the middle of fishing season. Indeed, even he will admit that the original one was just about the ugliest site he'd ever done but it was better than nothing. Well, about six or seven YEARS passed and the "temporary" site never got updated! I nagged at him, but still he never had time. :) But finally something happened that added more influence to my pleas and spurred him into action.

King 5's Northwest Backroads TV show was doing a special on Westport and they wanted to include a spot about the Seafood Connection. I told Kevin (and his partner agreed with me :) that NOW was the time to get that new site done! The pressure was on because the show was to be airing the next weekend after our beach outing so we worked long hours to get the site up and ready on time. This website was the first one that was truly a joint effort for Kevin and me, thanks in a big part to the photography class I took last year. Not only was I able to capture some decent photographs, but I also put to use many of the Photoshop skills I learned in the class as I created graphics, backgrounds and even retouched an old photo. It was kind of neat to see it all come together.

Now the site is about 90% finished (Kevin got too busy with fishing and I have no idea how to write internet code and stuff like that! :), but it is at least 300% better than the original was! Yay! If you want to see it, go to http://seafoodconnection.net. There's still some tweaking that needs to be done and we hope to put up individual pages for our seafood products when we have more time. I'm also toying with the idea of having some type of blog on there to update customers about specials and just-in seafood, post more pictures and perhaps videos (Kevin took some really fun underwater tuna fishing footage last year), and give fishing updates. But it'll have to wait until next year as Kevin's too busy to help me figure out the logistics right now.

I'd put off blogging about this until now because I had wanted to be able to post the video segment from the TV show right here on the blog, but NW Backroads still doesn't have it up on their site yet. You can still see it, though, if you live here in the NW because we've been told they are airing the Westport special again on King 5 at 7pm tomorrow night (6/25). Kevin and I haven't even seen it yet because we don't have TV, but I'm going to head to my parents this time so that I can watch it! :)

And if you are ever out in Westport, head on down to Float 8 to check out the store!

(P.S. That's Kevin's boat to the left of the store :)