Outdoor Dining - Week of May 20th

"Cooking and eating food outdoors makes it taste infinitely better than the same meal prepared and consumed indoors." ~Fennel Hudson

There are certain activities and gatherings that become a part of our core memories.  For Cameron, dinners with the Raisch fam have been happening since he was born.  This family has collectively shared life experiences with us for the past 22 years.  When we moved in across the street in 2001, we couldn't have imagined the bond we would share.  When we moved again in 2012, it was a big reason we could only venture one street over.

Scheduling is challenging between our two families, so we were pleasantly surprised to be able to add a home fish fry to the collective calendar for Friday evening.  And the list of attendees grew which was the best bonus of all!

Walleye caught by Chris and and blue gill reeled in by Mr. Steve acted as our main course, along with homemade fries, roasted veggies and fresh fruit.  Being outside to share our meal, swapping stories and memories, talking about the upcoming marriage of Megan and Nathan and of course, laughing, were true highlights.

Saturday brought a tasty treat for Cam's breakfast.  Chris drove over to Chick-Fil-A early and snagged his son a biscuit chicken sandwich for the first meal of the day.  Multiple projects were attended to and Cam provided supervisory oversight to keep his parents on task.

On Sunday, we packed up food for dinner and made our way to the cottage.  The afternoon was spent with our cousins and Oma and Opa, who met us there after lunch.  It was mild enough to gather outdoors and eat some tasty appetizers.  We were considering having our evening meal outside as well until we noticed the intense storm clouds over Lake Michigan.  

The benefit of seeing the wide open skies brings the ability to have advance warning of inclimate weather.  We all made it inside prior to the rain beating down.  Even though we weren't able to have a second outdoor dinner event during the weekend, the fresh air feeling stayed with us.  As the rain came down outside, the grilled and smoked food made its way inside.  We dined and talked and it felt a bit like the unofficial start to summer.  And we all decided that the best way to close out a weekend is to be around family.

Camology Quotes:

We are a technology driven family.  Sometimes, even we are perplexed by tech issues.  One evening, Jane's computer was having problems.  She worked on it for awhile, engaged Cam, and they couldn't figure it out.  When Chris arrived home, he and Cam tackled it again.  After some time, it was back to normal.  Jane asked her son how they corrected the issue and this was Cam's honest response:

"Mom, I am pretty smart, but I don't know everything!"