NC Visit - Pool Fun

Well, I took Friday off as a vacation day and made the Memorial Day weekend into a 4-day affair which gave me plenty of time to get over to NC for a visit with family.  I got into Hope Mills at about 7 PM Friday night just in time to watch David pulling some chicken wing pieces out of the outdoor fryer.  Bless his heart... he got all center wing sections, my favorite!  It was fun catching up and such and the wings were very, very good.  The drive over wasn't bad but there was a lot of traffic, but it was moving, and I ran into and through one rather serious rain storm complete with blinding rain, hail, and a bit of wind thrown in for good measure.  I was in it for maybe 30 minutes but it slowed traffic to a crawl for that time.  Other than that, no big deal.

I mentioned that I'm a bit behind in the spoiling department due mainly to my not living down the block from the kids.  When I got there, David had this swimming pool play area blown up in the yard and it was really something to see.  Of course I got my suit on and made an ass out of myself trying to imitate David going up the slide the wrong way.  I had a good time and so did Samantha as she shot a video of it.  As soon as I get it I'll put it up to embarrass myself.  Well, the play pool was being borrowed from a friend and we got to talking about getting one to own and, as said, I had some spoiling to catch up on.  So off to the store to pick up a play pool for Hannah to have. David and I got the thing set up in little time, made a few adjustments, and off to play we went!

Hannah headed up the ladder to get to the slide.  That's her cousin Ethan down there sitting in the water near the end of the slide.  Ethan took his time deciding whether he wanted to play in it or not but once he made up his mind it was non-stop action all the way.

Hannah hitting the water coming down the slide.  As she got used to it she took to kind of jumping onto the slide and really flew down the thing.  More than once there was a collective "Oh my God!" from the adults as she would jump, hit the slide once, and then hit the water.  The kid's got one strong butt!

 

Hannah completing one of her 'bounces' down the slide into the pool on the second day of playing in it.  This was so fun to watch :)

Saturday night David cooked up some of his world-famous ribs for us and they were very, very good.  He does know how to cook outside and slow cooked the ribs over some charcoal and wood that really flavored the ribs nicely.  WAY too many ribs to finish so we all had our fill and had we not had to head back home, the leftovers would have been something else for sure.  Oh yeah, before I forget, Saturday afternoon we had slaw-dogs for lunch.  I don't think I've ever had one but David cooked up some hotdogs on his grill, to perfection I might add, slap it on a bun and load on the cole slaw.  I have to admit... they were very good.

David cutting the ribs prior to tossing them into the pot to shake the sauce on to them.  Although it was me that taught David how to cook ribs, including how to skin them -- yes, there is skin and finding it and pulling it off will make a huge difference -- cut them up individually after cooking them and shaking them in a pot to sauce them, Samantha mentioned that David had said something like "We'll have ribs so I can show my dad how I perfected what he taught me as the basics."  Well... he succeeded.

Tossing them in the pot to sauce them.  Then after they're all cut individually, tossed in the pot, they're all dumped back on the grill to cook in the sauce.  Oh yeah... this is good stuff!  David just having to outdo his dad sauced the ribs 3 times but as said, these were some good ribs.

Sunday afternoon at about 2 PM I pulled out, really not wanting to leave.  A very uneventful drive back with very little traffic and a safe arrival made for one very, very nice trip for grandpa to see children and grandchildren.