Memorial Day Weekend. What a great holiday to kind of kick off summer. I view Memorial day weekend as kind of a warm up to the fourth of July. It’s a chance to perfect those grilling recipes, escape the heat at the lake, and just spend time with family. Also, it is always a great reminder that we can enjoy those things just described because of generations upon generations of heroic men and women who believe in the cause of liberty. And to all of those we say thank you. Now, since Memorial day is a 4th of July warm up, where else would we go, then to the lake house! Yes, Laura and I trekked westward towards lake Jackson to spend the long weekend with Laura’s family at their lake house.
Since, a few days prior, there had been a ferocious thunderstorm of epic proportions at the lake, some dock repairs were necessary because the little dock could not withstand the 60 mph winds and decided to separate and float down the lake. Fortunately, the neighbor was able to tie the dock up by a bank so that when we arrived we could tow the dock back to it’s designated place…on the property. And that is what indeed occurred. Much of the first day was dedicated to dock repair, but we were still able to get out in the boat a little bit to try our first attempt at wake boarding which was an epic fail.
That Saturday evening, Laura and I were selected to cook dinner. We took this opportunity to perfect some grilled BBQ chicken. I first lightly coated the chicken with a chicken seasoning dry rub. Normally, I like to do the portion a few hours in advance so the seasoning can impact the chicken more fully, however, with a late change of plans which caused us to have to cook, I sprinkled it on right before going on the grill. Once the grill was good and hot (but not too hot) the chicken went on and I basted the chicken with some melted butter. After a few minutes, I turned the chicken and basted with butter again. On the third turn, I put some BBQ sauce on the chicken. The BBQ sauce I used was homemade and super delicious. The recipe can be found here. After lathering up the chicken with the sauce and after about 18 minutes, the chicken came off and I poured the remaining sauce over the top of the plateful of chicken. It was finger licking delicious. While I was grilling away, Laura was making baked potatoes (compete with the whole 9 yards like bacon bits, cheese, chives, butter, sour cream, salt, etc) and glazed carrots. The mean came together perfectly and everyone loved it, so this was definitely a successful trial run of meal.
The next day, the dock was fixed completely by the afternoon, so more boating ensued. We did tubing, wake boarding (still failed), kayaking and knee boarding. After that, we came back and did a little bit of swimming off the dock to cool off from the ever increasing heat. That night we went to Johnny’s pizza for some tasty pies and decided to convince one of Laura’s sister that she needs something to learn and become great at since she has all of this free summer time and doesn’t appreciate it yet. I think she felt a little bit intimidated, but it seems she might do very well at water sports. The actual Memorial day was spent with the family preparing to leave. So we were doing dishes, laundry, sweeping, etc. And then we left that Monday in the late afternoon. It was a fabulous weekend and now my mouth is watering for July.
We used our Flip Camera to document a few of the fun times we enjoyed – then I used my Macbook Video editing skills to make this video. Hope you enjoy!
