Family Stuff, Day 2

Ocala, Florida

Weather: low 75 degrees, high 87 degrees, mostly cloudy skies

Our day began fairly early (try 0500 hours) as it seems we've caught up on our sleep. Both of us were awake, so we decided to get up and get a leisurely start on a day that we knew would be busy. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we were getting together today with more of my family at Roger's house.

About 0700 hours, I made a trip to the WalMart Mall to pick up our contributions to the gathering. As might be expected, the Mall was not busy, so I was able to go through the store and find what I needed fairly quickly. When I went to the checkout, there was no waiting there, unlike earlier this week.

By getting an early start, I was able to go home and rest a little before going over to Roger's house. He had asked me if I would do the cooking of the meat on the grill, since he had this unfounded idea that I was an expert at cooking on a charcoal grill. I'm not sure where he got that idea from, but since I'm the big brother and big brothers know how to do anything, I said I would do the cooking.

To me, the secret of cooking on charcoal is to have a good bed of coals. Well, Roger outdid himself with the preparation of the coals. In fact, he may have overdone the coals, as we had to use a spray bottle with water to keep the fire beat down enough so the food cooked instead of burning.

After we had the fire beat back enough, the food was cooked just right: not burned, juicy, and done. In other words, everyone raved about how well it was cooked.

I told you big brothers can do anything. This was a snap.

We were ready to eat just as we planned at lunch time. Everyone dug into hamburgers, hot dogs, brats, baked beans, potato salad, chips, and all the other trimmings. After letting the lunch settle a little, we had dessert, consisting of cake, apple pie, and peanut butter pie. It was a great meal, and the thing that made it even better was having loved ones talking and remembering days from long ago. I'm getting maudlin thinking about how we used to get together when we lived here. Those were great days!

My family can't get together without taking pictures, and today was typical. Here's one of everyone except Pat's husband Dave, who was kind enough to take the picture.



Here's a picture of some of the good looking ladies, plus Terrell. Doesn't Carolyn look good in yellow? Don't tell her I put her picture on the blog.



It looks like Janie is ready for college football season to start. Check out one of her Gator shoes.



Wayne looks like he had plenty to eat, and needed a nap. I need to give him some lessons on meditating.



Now, it's time to start planning for the next get together.

More later, be safe.

Today's Town - Alpine, Texas: The Last Frontier

Not all who wander are lost.