Wednesday, November 4, 2009

A look back...

I was chatting with a friend tonight on Facebook. She is going to Costa Rica for the holidays. Yeah, I'm jealous. It is beautiful there. Anyway, I sent her the link to my Panama Canal Cruise photo page so she could get a glimpse of our stop in Costa Rica. While doing so, I had to look back at some of the pictures and came across this one. It's from a happy day yet a sad one at the same time. I'll start with the sad part: It was our last day on the ship! I know, kind of silly but when you've gone on an awesome 18 day cruise through the Panama Canal, who would want to go home! Now for the happy part: It was the second day that our little Kaylee was walking on her own! She waited and had us carry her and push her around in the stroller the whole trip until the next to the last day when she took her first steps by herself without holding on to someone or something! We were all in our pajamas ready for bed when she decided it was "her time to walk" and walked around the whole deck! Even people we didn't know were looking out their cabin doors cheering her on! For those of you who know us well, you know we had waited so long for her to walk on her own! What great memories we'll always have of that trip - thanks Kaylee!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

charcoal chicken...

Monday night I marinated some chicken in some jerk seasoning I had bought while in the Caribbean. I had made it in the past several times and couldn't wait to eat it again - after all, it had marinated for 24 hours - yummy goodness! So, I had Mike crank up the grill - yes my northern friends, we still have some grillin' weather! Anyway, he turned it to low which he always does. I waited a few minutes for the grill to heat up and then went out to put the chicken on the top rack. I use the top rack because chicken has a tendency to flare up once in a while and this keeps it from coming in direct contact with any flame (or so I thought). I went out a few times to check on it and all was good. I then returned again to turn it over and lifted the lid on the grill only to find an ash grey grill rack with chicken shaped charcoal on it! I couldn't believe it - my chicken was gone - almost dust in fact! I looked at the thermometer: 600 degrees - no, that's not normal for the low setting! What I think happened was in between checking it, there must have been a flare up which toasted the racks and the chicken as well as causing the grill to reach that super high temp. And, wouldn't you know, I had invited company over for dinner - of course! So, to those of you who came over for dinner - hope you enjoyed the store bought fried chicken! Now I'll have to book another cruise to get more of that super delicious jerk seasoning!