The Four "F"s--A Great Combo!

FRIENDS (AND FOOD!)

Last Friday night we had a lovely outing with our friends, Gary and Rebecca. It had rained during the afternoon, but cleared up and it turned out to be a really beautiful evening. We headed for the BIG metropolis of Zulu, Indiana.

Now, pretty much all that Zulu really has is "Billy's", a Mexican restaurant. I was very amused at the sign in the restaurant (above) because I was thinking that Billy's was the entire downtown Zulu!

I forgot to take pictures until after our food was gone--hence, no photos of our flauta's and burrito and Combo plate. It was all very good, except my hubby thought the combo plate was a little extra spicy.

On our way home, we stopped at Janelle's place (Lynn's daughter), and visited her pony, Star. You may remember a post about the birthday party we had for Star some time ago. Don't Gary and Rebecca look right at home on the farm?

FAMILY (AND FOOD!)

For many years now (maybe 14 or 15?) the girl cousins on my dad's side have gotten together for a reunion in the summer. This year we went to Archbold, Ohio to the Heritage Inn. We all grew up in Archbold and/or the surrounding communities.

There are actually 12 girl 1st cousins, and we also now include the girl cousins-in-law. We have not been including the male 1st cousins (we did have 4 but two have passed away); but this year we decided to include the remaining 2 male cousins. So there would be a total of 17. But as you can see only one of the male cousins was able to come and enjoy the festivities. My brother and his wife were unable to come, and 2 of the girl cousins were unable to come, so this was our group of 13.

FOOD is a big part of what we do when we get together. Tuesday evening we enjoyed a great meal at Stella Blue, a restaurant in downtown Archbold.

On Wednesday we took a drive to the little town of Grand Rapids, Ohio, which is right on the Maumee River. We ate at a delightful restaurant there, LaRoe's. Most of us had a sandwich and soup lunch, with 4 different kinds of soup--all of them delicious.

I put this next picture here for 2 reasons; it goes with the "Food" category; and also you may see a trend in my picture taking. I seem to be getting the best side of everyone in these pics!

We stopped on the way home from Grand Rapids in Ridgeville for an ice cream cone.

Most of us are farm girls and used to the country smells; but as we were sitting there attempting to enjoy our ice cream there was suddenly a very strong, fragrant odor from the very common fertilizer used in the country! Sadly, we had to go to our cars to finish our cones!

Later on Wednesday evening, we had a wonderful birthday dinner, in which we celebrated ALL of our birthdays. (It was the actual birthday of my cousin Carol--so we had celebrated with her all day, including a free dessert at LaRue's. I failed to get a picture of the feast we had, which was prepared by a few of the cousins that still live in Archbold. But my sister, Brenda took this photo of the two wonderful dishes prepared by the real birthday cousin, Carol.


And these were our cupcakes, which besides being very nicely decorated, were also displayed in the shape of a "G" for Gisel.

FUN, FUN, FUN! It would be hard to describe the dynamics of our group, but whenever we get together, we absolutely have so much fun. We end up laughing until we cry--which is actually very healthy for us, as it increases our store of endorphins.

One of the fun things we did, was to take a Canal Boat ride while we were in Grand Rapids. Our guide on the boat did a great job of explaining all the history. But basically these boats ran up and down this river during the late 1800's and early 1900's. They were pulled by mules who walked along the edge of the river and were attached to the boat by a rope. In it's prime this canal route had several locks to go through, but we actually went through the only lock that is still functional at this time. It was a great history lesson and a fun ride.

(May I just say that once again, I have captured the better side of some of our group in this picture!) What was I thinking? I could have at least asked them to turn around for the photo!

AHA! Finally, a picture with all of us facing the right direction! This was taken just before our canal ride, and one of our guides graciously agreed to take the picture for us.

This girl is a student and does this as a summer job. She did a great job of not only giving us a thorough history of the canal boats, etc, but also helped with the working of the boat at times. What a hot, summer job, but she seemed very enthusiastic.

I couldn't get a good picture of the mules while they wer pulling the boat. This is Molly and Mabel (actually, I'm sure it's not Mabel, but I forgot the name of the second one!

This is one of the gals who helped with the boat. The had to unhook the mules from the boat when they went through the locks, and she was helping to steer with the rope. She's actually walking on the wall along the lock, and they often walked on top of the boat to maneuver it at different times.

This just shows them opening the gates to the lock in order for us to go through.

Before we left that area, we stopped to see the Providence Dam. I'm always impressed with the amount of force and power the water has going over the dam.

Now that I've written a book, I will bore you no further. I just wanted to share some of the fun activities I've had recently involving, Friends, Family, Food, and Fun!