Memorial Day Weekend Visitors

Niece Sarah and her friend Josh joined, Kathie, Mom, and me for a Memorial Day weekend at the lake. As you know, one of our "rules", if you visit us at the lake, is that you have to prepare one meal. Here we are enjoying Sarah's superb offering of stuffed pasta shells, salad (can't recall the name of it, but it has broccoli, onions, raisins, and other good stuff in it), and Texas garlic toast.

Sarah was also very kind to her old "Inkle Bill" by making a special peach pie from a recipe that my mother created. I always think of it as being very much like a dutch apple pie but with peaches instead of apples. Wow! A blast from the past and great tastes. I had two pieces. Everyone else only got one each.

Being at the lake involves some required time crashing on the couch or outside on the deck furniture.

Mom loves Josey and Josey loves Mom. Mom spent some time brushing Josey. She is more gentle at it than we are, so Josey is more tolerant of her attentions.

Kathie and I took Sarah and Josh fishing two times. The first outing was a bust, except for one Northern that Kathie caught. But on Sunday, we decided to try for Bluegill, since we thought we might see more action that way. "More action" was an understatement. We kept the 21 fish you see below (20 Bluegill and one Bream) and had a very good dinner, although I don't want to clean 21 small fish again anytime soon. I actually didn't do much fishing, because Kathie, Josh, and Sarah were hauling them in almost as fast as you could get bait in the water. So, I pretended to be the guide by removing fish from hooks and transferring them to the livewell, rebaiting hooks, and rerigging when necessary. They used up a dozen worms, one piece at a time, and probably caught three dozen or more fish altogether, including four or five stray bass, that couldn't be kept because the season for bass hasn't opened yet. There was lots of hilarity, some unnecessary screaming (not by Josh), and much fun had by all.

Turns out that Josh beat everyone at ping pong. Here he is preparing to receive one of Sarah's spinning serves.

And here he is ready for a smash back across the net. Note the required facial expression for such a move.

Dala was here too, of course. Here are our three guests shortly before their departure.

And Josh and Sarah on the porch, eager and ready to head back home and to their respective jobs. Right!