The weekend was fun.

Mom decided on Friday that she didn't want to go out. I think she was resting up for the visit by our cousin Sue and having to lay out a big feed on Saturday. So Denise and I went to BJs without her. Once again it was excellent food. I had their New Orleans Jambalaya, which is so spicy it made my head sweat and cleared my sinuses. WONDERFUL! And, as usual, their home brewed Harvest Hefeweise was also wonderful, even if I have to ask for the orange slice. I'll get the waiters trained eventually.

After that we drove west to Lampasas to visit with our friends who were competing in a chili cook-off there this weekend. The town was packed with party goers and there was a live band playing on the town square. It was about 95 when we got there at 9 or 10 pm, so I was glad I wasn't stayin' there and sleepin' in a tent. We sat there with them and drank a few beers and then headed off to the house.

Saturday morning, or really afternoon, we met up with some old friends of Denise's, from her earlier life as an army wife, and we all headed back to Lampassas. These are some nice folks. Their son is in the Army and has just been stationed at Ft. Hood, so we'll be seeing more of them in the future. They came down in their RV and are staying at a park on Lake Belton called BLORA.

We spent the afternoon with them, wandering around the park there in Lampasas, checking out the spring and the river, eating BBQ ribs at the camp site and then having a great lunch at this nice German restaurant there on the town square. We tried our hand at fishing in the river there by the spring but didn't have any luck.

There's a pool there that the spring water flows into where the water comin' right out of the aquifer is at about 65 degrees. It's REALLY nice to jump in there when it's 100 degrees in the shade. We all made plans to drive back over there some weekend and take a dip.

My buddy Dave ended up takin' third place for his chicken wings! Congrats dude. We sampled his ribs Saturday afternoon and they were wonderful. He wasn't happy with them though. The meat wasn't really falling off the bone. Hell, I loved them anyway. Everyone else did too.

We left there in time to make it back to Temple to have dinner with my mom and cousin. Mom's Chicken Enchiladas were wonderful. They always are. Like Dave, she's never really satisfied with what she does. That's the sign of a good cook, I guess. Take it from me though, they were great.

After dinner we headed over to BLORA to have dessert with Denise's friends. We showed up with a gallon of Brahms homemade vanilla ice cream and they added the German liqueur as the topping. It was great.

It was all great! We had fabulous weekend. Now I'm back at work (muh!).

I just got an email from Mushy. It sounds like they're having a wonderful time in Alaska. One of these days...