Saturday Shindig

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

Saturday we had a shindig at our little lake cabin in the mountains.  I don’t know why we always call it a mountain but we do.  Terry tells folks on the phone he can’t talk because he’ll loose his cell signal since he’s going up the mountain.  The elevation here is only 1100 feet.  The highest we climb to get to the other side is about 1400 feet.  That isn't really a mountain.  It's a hill. The elevation of many US cities is well above that.   So, why do we call it a mountain?  The best answer is just because we do and probably because other areas in this part of Washington run just above sea level.

The problem with having shindigs is getting people to RSVP.  Another problem is when they don’t look at the invitation to check the time.   I’m wondering if over the years people have forgotten what RSVP really means.  When you buy ribs for a bunch it can get pretty expensive and especially when you don’t know if folks are coming or don’t know when they will be there.  You end up buying way more than you need. Such was the case.  The good thing is that there were leftovers.  My brother took some, Lee took some and I fed more to Tammi's kids for breakfast this morning.

The good thing is though I really enjoyed having the people come that did come no matter what time they got here.  We ate ribs, the little kids roasted hot dogs, we talked, some played games, hiked and others hit the swimming pool.  The highlight was having those who counted most show up. 

There were a few little surprises for Terry.  Sabrina prepared a “vegan” birthday cake for him.  The teaser was that there would be no eggs, no oil and no flour.  Since Terry doesn’t eat just everything, we knew we really couldn’t tell him that.  However, it turned out to be the perfect cake for him.  Sabrina is so good at these little creative things.  She’s so good in fact we just let her do it.  There’s no competition in this group to beat her at the title.

In my last blog I indicated that the night before I had read that charcoal grills were not allowed since it had been so hot and we had not had any rain.  What I couldn’t understand was why would small campfires be allowed but not a charcoal grill.  We have a huge grill that would have been just perfect for all the ribs but we couldn’t use it.  Panic!  We only had our little Weber we had brought up from the motorhome.  We had thought we would buy another Weber … one for the motorhome and one for the cabin … but we hadn’t yet.  How could I cook all those ribs and chicken on that little grill?

In my sleep I was wrapping ribs and cooking them and came up with a plan that might work.  Part of them were going in the oven, part of them in our little Weber and the other part were going to be cooked on Robert’s grill that I was going to ask if he’d bring up in  his truck.  Problem solved …. or so in my dream I did.

However, it didn’t quite work like that.  Robert and Tammi surprised Terry with an early birthday present.  It was another Weber grill!  Perfect!!  We love the Webers!  What a great surprise that was.

By the time everyone left I was ready for bed.  I was beat but it was just too early to go to bed and too late to take a nap.  When 8:30 rolled around I finally went to bed.  Then, we got another call from Arizona regarding Terry’s dad.  We will probably not be making our little trip this week as Terry figures he will may be heading back to Arizona.

‘Tis life on the road.