Burgers and Blokus

Two other new experiences  during our family weekend at the cottage were preparing a Burger Bar meal and playing Blokus for the first time.  Our family was in charge of cooking for the extended family on Saturday night and it was Joel and Karen’s idea that we create a Burger Bar.  

Joel put himself in charge of making the burgers.  He mixed lots of garlic and some eggs with the meat and then shaped healthy-sized burgers.

Joel took orders from everyone about how they wanted their burgers done and what kind of cheese they wanted melted on their burger. He had a pen and paper out so he could keep track of all sixteen orders.

While Joel was busy barbecuing, his wife Karen was preparing the bar of toppings for people to choose from. She had lots of things to chop. The burger topping bar included mushrooms, sun-dried and fresh tomatoes, green peppers, red peppers, regular mustard, honey-spiced mustard, bacon, ketchup, relish, olives, jalapenos, lettuce, three kinds of cheese, pickles, avocados, regular onions, red onions………… It took Karen a long time to get everything ready—although her father-in-law Dave did help by frying all the bacon. Dave was also in charge of baking the sweet potato fries and I made a salad and baked angel food cakes for dessert. 

After singing Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow  a tradition I love because our family has lots of good singers and the harmonies and sound we produce are great —I really think we could have a family choir—it was time to dig into the burger bar.  It received rave reviews!  

Then it was time for Blokus. It is a strategy game I had never played before this weekend. Karen, our daughter-in-law is very good at it, as is my niece Amanda. They even beat Bryan, my nephew, a recent pharmacy graduate, who since childhood, has been notorious for his dominance in all the board games we play at the lake.  I played abysmally my first round but quickly learned some strategies to improve my performance. Blokus is a great game and one I think Dave and I should add to our collection.