July 4th and Beyond

Yesterday was Independence Day - in more ways than one I believe. We spent the day at Kathy's parents on the river. They had a huge party - lot of friends, family and fireworks. Mike (Kathy's step-dad) smoked a couple of turkeys (wild & domestic) and everyone brought something to share. The food was awesome, the company was great - got to see lots of family on Kathy's side which was cool. Means we don't have to drive to see everyone. The only thing is that the weather didn't cooperate, it rained most of the morning and day so we didn't get to get out on the river and play like we had wanted. However, by late afternoon it had cleared up and it was beautiful. We didn't go to see fireworks - we shot off our own. Mike went to Missiouri earlier and bought a bunch that him and the kids shot off. They were actually quite impressive. All in all in was a great 4th of July.

Kiel left for the Czech Republic yesterday and as of yet we haven't heard from him. They caught an earlier flight so they would have more time in between connecting flights so they wouldn't feel rushed. I'm sure alls well and we'll get an email from him in the near future. Hope he had a good flight and didn't drive rest of the passengers batty with his restlessness.

Today (July 5th) was another river day. Dave (Kathy's brother) and his family came over and we were going to play on the river. The weather was absolutely perfect. Mike has an old 1956 wooden Century boat. It hasn't been in the water for nearly 7-8 years. They have put a lot of time, money and effort getting it seaworthy and it looked tremendous. They took it out on it's shake down cruise and all was well until the engine started smoking - we believe they blew a head gasket on the engine. So we took the boat out of the water and Mike took it to the repair shop. While he was gone, we got in the fiberglass open bow boat and decided to go the beach(sandbar). There were six of us in the boat and two people on the jet ski. We went to the beach and played. On the way home, the engine started making strange noises and seized up. Right in the middle of the channel of the Mississippi. We couldn't get it started so we had to have the jet ski tow us to a nearby town. We called Mike and told him that we had killed his other boat. He came got us and the boat. He just got back from taking that one to the shop too. We went through two boats in one day...that's pretty bad.

We're cooking at home tonight and will spend time together before everyone heads back to work tomorrow. We are heading for the Thomson/Savanna Illinois area tomorrow for a couple of days. We are going to play some golf, eat some pizza at Manny's and see some old friends. It should be fun and I'm looking forward to it.

That's about all I have from here, will fill you in with more later. Need to go see if I can help with dinner (i.e snag something to eat) Take care. Later.