**NOTE--I had emailed Ryan at one point and mentioned to him that he may hate me for saying this, but I don't like Thanksgiving Dinners....I don't like Turkey and Cranberries, and all that. I told him one of my sisters and I had agreed a long time ago that we would have a barbecue for our Thanksgivings cause we much rather have a hamburger off of the grill than a piece of turkey! To my surprise, Ryan told me that made him love me that much more cause HE felt the same way about turkey! He had also planned on barbecuing for Thanksgiving dinners, cause he had all the turkey he could take out on his mission.** PAM
Sunday, July 01, 2007
One of my favorite things is backyard barbecuing-- I have always enjoyed eating burgers fresh off the backyard grill. The summer air, being with friends and family, root beer and lemonade all around. Ahhh, it's magnificent. The funny thing is, all my life, I never barbecued. Strange, but true. I never had a dad growing up and my mom doesn't know how to barbecue. So you can imagine how much I looked forward to summer vacations when we would go and see relatives because they are all barbecuing fiends!
Well, the day of the glorious barbecue is a special day in the barbecuing history of my life. It took place on Monday April 23rd 2007--which is also Michael Jordan Day for those of you who know me really well. The picture that goes along with this story is already in my mission pictures and has the corresponding caption...sadly, it is one of the few (two) pictures I took that day. So without further adou, I'll tell you about the barbecue :)
Spring had finally come to Dubuque, IA. I had been in that area all winter long and at the end of April, the weather was finally beginning to show signs of life. At our missionary apartment we had a porch, and on that porch we had a very tiny charcoal grill. All winter, I had stared at that grill...and, consequently, it stared back at me... It was nearing the end of the transfer, and all the missionaries in our district were predicting that I would be leaving. And rightly so, I had been there for 6 months and it is nigh unheard of for a missionary to stay any longer than that in one area in our mission. So I (being the District Leader, I get to do these things) started planning on having a get together with our district for our last Pday together before transfers, and it being Michael Jordan Day only made it that much more special.
We were planning to have the Clinton Elders come up to Dubuque (The DeWitt Elders were busy with other things) and we were going to throw down some serious Phase 10 and Apples to Apples--The two staples of a missionary Pday. The Sunday night before they were supposed to come up I was doing a little bit of cleaning to make the apartment look nice. As I was cleaning, I happened upon a bag of Kingsford Charcoal in our storage basement. Immediately, the little grill sitting on our porch popped into my head! I ran back up stairs, called up Elder DeGraw and said, "Elder, we're gonna barbecue tomorrow for lunch and I thought I would call you and tell you that you can bring shorts to wear if you want since we won't be leaving the apartment and it's supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow!" He was down with that.
Monday is B-day! Elder DeGraw and Elder Shunn drove up early and got to our place around 7 am. We went out to Wal-mart and bought some hamburger patties, chips, soda... you know, a barbecuer's necessities. After doing our e-mail down at the library we were now ready to play some games and fire up the grill. But leave it to my companion, Elder Gregersen, to rain on the parade. "Does anyone actually know how to barbecue?" The other Elders were silent and looked as if they just lost a golden investigator. "Elder, I was born to barbecue!" I said authoratatively. "Yeah...but you've never actually barbecued..." he stammered. "Pfft! All you gotta do is light up the coals, throw the meat on, and flip it around until it's black. Piece a cake!" I assured him. "I'm scared..." Elder Shunn squeaked. "Elder Price's got this, no problemo! He's our fearless leader!" At least Elder DeGraw was on my side.
After changing into my shorts (I thought I looked good with my shirt and tie still on... see picture) We were ready to grill. Elder DeGraw and I piled the coals into the little grill and proceeded to squirt half a bottle of lighter fluid onto them, no joke, half a bottle. Then we lit 'em up. We had poured that much lighter fluid on because we wanted to see a huge fireball that might burn our eyebrows off. Yeah, nothing happened. We played through a few phases of Phase 10 while the coals heated up. Then it was time to grill.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
One of my favorite things is backyard barbecuing-- I have always enjoyed eating burgers fresh off the backyard grill. The summer air, being with friends and family, root beer and lemonade all around. Ahhh, it's magnificent. The funny thing is, all my life, I never barbecued. Strange, but true. I never had a dad growing up and my mom doesn't know how to barbecue. So you can imagine how much I looked forward to summer vacations when we would go and see relatives because they are all barbecuing fiends!
Well, the day of the glorious barbecue is a special day in the barbecuing history of my life. It took place on Monday April 23rd 2007--which is also Michael Jordan Day for those of you who know me really well. The picture that goes along with this story is already in my mission pictures and has the corresponding caption...sadly, it is one of the few (two) pictures I took that day. So without further adou, I'll tell you about the barbecue :)
Spring had finally come to Dubuque, IA. I had been in that area all winter long and at the end of April, the weather was finally beginning to show signs of life. At our missionary apartment we had a porch, and on that porch we had a very tiny charcoal grill. All winter, I had stared at that grill...and, consequently, it stared back at me... It was nearing the end of the transfer, and all the missionaries in our district were predicting that I would be leaving. And rightly so, I had been there for 6 months and it is nigh unheard of for a missionary to stay any longer than that in one area in our mission. So I (being the District Leader, I get to do these things) started planning on having a get together with our district for our last Pday together before transfers, and it being Michael Jordan Day only made it that much more special.
We were planning to have the Clinton Elders come up to Dubuque (The DeWitt Elders were busy with other things) and we were going to throw down some serious Phase 10 and Apples to Apples--The two staples of a missionary Pday. The Sunday night before they were supposed to come up I was doing a little bit of cleaning to make the apartment look nice. As I was cleaning, I happened upon a bag of Kingsford Charcoal in our storage basement. Immediately, the little grill sitting on our porch popped into my head! I ran back up stairs, called up Elder DeGraw and said, "Elder, we're gonna barbecue tomorrow for lunch and I thought I would call you and tell you that you can bring shorts to wear if you want since we won't be leaving the apartment and it's supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow!" He was down with that.
Monday is B-day! Elder DeGraw and Elder Shunn drove up early and got to our place around 7 am. We went out to Wal-mart and bought some hamburger patties, chips, soda... you know, a barbecuer's necessities. After doing our e-mail down at the library we were now ready to play some games and fire up the grill. But leave it to my companion, Elder Gregersen, to rain on the parade. "Does anyone actually know how to barbecue?" The other Elders were silent and looked as if they just lost a golden investigator. "Elder, I was born to barbecue!" I said authoratatively. "Yeah...but you've never actually barbecued..." he stammered. "Pfft! All you gotta do is light up the coals, throw the meat on, and flip it around until it's black. Piece a cake!" I assured him. "I'm scared..." Elder Shunn squeaked. "Elder Price's got this, no problemo! He's our fearless leader!" At least Elder DeGraw was on my side.
After changing into my shorts (I thought I looked good with my shirt and tie still on... see picture) We were ready to grill. Elder DeGraw and I piled the coals into the little grill and proceeded to squirt half a bottle of lighter fluid onto them, no joke, half a bottle. Then we lit 'em up. We had poured that much lighter fluid on because we wanted to see a huge fireball that might burn our eyebrows off. Yeah, nothing happened. We played through a few phases of Phase 10 while the coals heated up. Then it was time to grill.
We had a little blue recliner in our apartment that I drug out onto the porch to sit in while I watched the meat. I wasn't sure how to grill, so I just wanted to be there to keep an eye on it. Elder DeGraw and I sat out there and chatted while the other two Elders got all the fixin's ready...that's midwestern for condiments and other stuff. It was a BLAST! I don't mind saying that the burgers turned out fabulous by the way.
The rest of the afternoon was spent playing this wierd card game that elder Shunn had called, "Bang!". It was hilarious! Somehow we got into yelling BANG! at each other and talking like Sarge from Red vs. Blue and drinking root beer like there was no tomorrow (we had bought 4 bottles). It was probably one of the most absolute funniest days of my life!
and now you know why it is called the Day of the Glorious Barbecue.
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