Grandma Hazel Birthday

Last weekend was a busy one with lots of family on hand to celebrate Grandma Hazel's 87th birthday. Angela's birthday was Sunday so it was a festive weekend. Dewey, Susan, Angela, and Anna arrived Friday evening and we celebrated with Fish of Stroh and a birthday cake. Saturday Amy's, Pat's, and George's joined the crowd and we had another celebration with DQ cake and BBQ ribs. Uncle John, Dew & Sue's granddaughter Ashley from Kokomo and her friend were in on Sunday. Since Bump's couldn't be here, we did a BBQ sauce taste test in his honor on Saturday. I learned that it's hard to do a taste test - too many variables. One problem was that we cooked 4 slabs of baby backs and some were more done than others, thus the texture of the meat affected likes and dislikes to some extent. We tried 4 sauces - all either the classic or original versions of the sauces - Krogers, Montgomery Inn, KC Masterpiece, and Cattleman's. We had votes from 8 of the tasters (Susan, Harry, George, Angela, Amy, Dewey, Linda and Anna). Pat and Amber arrived later and, as everyone knows, Pat is the expert in ribs but they had already eaten and couldn't manage the ribfest. I tallied the numbers, giving the lowest number 1st place (ribs were rated 1 to 4 with 1 being the favorite and 4 the least favorite). Going by that scale the ratings came in this way:

1. Cattlemans
2. Montgomery Inn
3. KC Masterpiece
4. Krogers

Cattlemans was the number 1 pick for Harry, George and Anna. KC Masterpiece was the number 1 pick for Amy. Mongtomery Inn was first place for Susan, Angela, and Linda. Kroger gleaned only 1 first place rating -Dewey.

We decided to try the sauce itself and ratings were far different. Of the 4 people who tried just the sauce - it was unanimous KC Masterpiece was everyone's favorite while Montgomery Inn was everyone's least favorite. Cattleman's fell primarily into 3rd place and Kroger was 2nd place.

We'll have to learn the tips to good testing before we try another attempt.

Here are a few photos from the weekend:

Blowing Out the Candles

2 Cakes!!
Amy, Cole & Logan
Dewey, Angela, Kensi & Anna
Anna Learns the Fast Song Dance
Kensi, Levi & Cole - Into the Fast Song and the Wiggly Squiggly Song

Grandma H. has been having visits from a physical therapist the past two weeks and we're encouraged that, in spite of a bad cough/cold, she is getting around better the past couple days. The PT is teaching us along with her how to do some things a bit easier and with less stress on the joints.

Harry has been busying building his bee brood (house) and expects to get his bees the early part of May. Did you know that bees only live 6 weeks (unless they emerge before frost and are confined to the hive for a period longer than that? Also, they are born with all the knowledge they need - there is no learned behavior. I guess if you only live 6 weeks, that's pretty important. He keeps sharing all these interesting facts about bees.